


The Father

by Misaya



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Child Eren Yeager, Doubt, Eruri Week, Eventual Levi/Erwin Smith, F/M, Father-Son Relationship, Feels, Levi-centric (Shingeki no Kyojin), M/M, Parents Levi & Erwin Smith, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Pining Levi, Sad with a Happy Ending, Single Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:32:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 35,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2807732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Misaya/pseuds/Misaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Irony is defined as the wry humour one derives from finding the differences between what life is and what life should be. </p><p>Levi figures he's at that point where the situation ceases to be humourless and starts to become despondent. But when the whispers get too loud for him, Eren squirms and mutters in his sleep and he can drown them out for a few hours longer. </p><p>And Erwin? It's just another unexceptional day in a series of exceptionally remarkable ones.</p><p>Eventual Levi x Erwin, kid!Eren, will keep tags updated, rating is subject to change. </p><p>Modern/City Life! AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Cracks on the Ceiling

**Author's Note:**

> Written to: [Broadripple is Burning - Margot and the Nuclear So So's.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxwCLS-7eYA)

What makes a father?

There were several answers to that particular question, Levi felt, a recipe that varied from person to person, a pinch of love here, a dash of athleticism, a penchant for Monday night football ensconced carefully in a squashy armchair in front of the big-screen television, with a bowl of tortilla chips and a bottle of beer clutched firmly in one hand.

Nobody could agree on what exactly made the perfect father. For some it was the educated professor-types, pushing up rectangular glasses higher up on the bridges of angular noses, fiddling with the knots of Windsor-style neckties and encased in a shell of academia, of mountains of hastily scribbled notes and old onion-skin textbooks and argyle sweaters. There were two kinds of this type of father. There were the ones who were elementary school teachers, or perhaps elementary school teachers and PhD students trying to write a thesis on some child psychology research or the like. The second were usually older, more grandfatherly than directly paternal, and they had already achieved tenure and were free to let their hair go salt-and-pepper and their bellies hang out over their belts, were able to afford a small family, and maybe a mistress in Manhattan on the side, if they were professors at a private institution and made a relatively decent salary from whatever scholarly papers they'd published in.

There were the athletic fathers. The ones who could rattle off long lists of numbers that would have brought even the finest statistician to tears. The ones whose diets in college had consisted of probably seven grilled chickens a day and breakfasts of protein shakes. Their kids were enrolled in at least three different sports teams in school, and had no less than three scrapes on their bodies at any given time.

The dorky fathers, fluent in Python and C++ and Java, who more often than not had their arms bound in flexible casts, victims of carpal tunnel. A basement filled with technological equipment, a pale complexion from staying up late into the wee hours of the morning and staring at LCD screens, their blood at least 33% caffeinated products.

And that was only a short list. Fathers came in all shapes and sizes and colours. Fathers came from all sorts of backgrounds, because once upon a time they had also been kids, as hard as that was to imagine.

There were good fathers. There were bad ones. Present ones, absent ones.

But ultimately, they were all donors of seed, swift, wriggling molecules swimming desperately upstream to propagate genes rooted deep inside their membranes, trying to pass on a father's green eyes, or his love for fantasy football, or implant the suggestion of the gratification of finding salvation in the bottom of a bottle. A whisper, nothing more, but whispers can sometimes be the loudest things when you're lying awake at night and wondering where your life is going.

Levi still woke up some mornings and found it horrifyingly difficult to believe that he, too, was a father. He lay awake in the soft silence of the one-bedroom apartment, staring up at the cracked ceiling, listening to the sounds of the city starting to wake up outside, pinched himself hard on the thigh to remind himself that, yes, he really was a father, there was a bassinet standing in the corner right there to prove it, and all manner of baby paraphernalia scattered around the flat.

At this point, he would rouse himself from bed, tossing off the sheets frantically from their position, tangled around his legs and elbows, smothering, still smelling freshly of nightmares, and he would rush over to the bassinet, eyes searching frantically through the rumpled sheets until he located his son's face. He would stare very hard, eventually holding the back of a finger up near his son's tiny nose, holding his breath until he was absolutely one hundred percent sure that the child was breathing.

He would relax then, folding his arms across his chest, his thumb absentmindedly worrying at a hole in his undershirt, and would make a mental list of the things he had to get done that day, exactly how much rent he was on backlog for, when he might be able to scrape up enough money to get a new jacket for his son, the one he currently had was being outgrown at a pace that Levi could hardly keep track of.

And sons. What were they made of? Levi wasn't sure of that answer, either.

His son, in this case, had no genetic tie to him, he would never open charcoal-gray eyes mirroring Levi's own, would never inherit Levi's passion for cleaning, he could already tell from the way he squirmed away in distaste whenever Levi tried to wipe his mouth after dinner and how he sobbed like his heart was breaking whenever Levi carted him to the bathroom for his nightly bath.

His son's name was Eren, an orphan of orphans. Displaced. Mislaid. Forgotten.

Those things, but not abandoned. Levi had promised not to abandon him, and he was nothing of not a man of his word.

Eren would wake up, turquoise eyes blinking open wide and rolling around until they fell upon Levi, who would be jolted rudely out of his mental calculations by a stream of babbling that began the instant Eren woke up and didn't abate until he fell asleep. Levi would pick him up, change him, stuffing tiny limbs into impossibly tiny clothes that, he would note with dismay, seemed to be getting thinner and more ragged by the day, before carting him into the kitchen on his hip to have a breakfast of oatmeal, thinned with water because the milk had to last.

He would deposit Eren at a daycare center run by one of his acquaintances from university, who gave him a generous discount on the minding fees, and then he would head to work, trying to ignore the hole currently being worn through the sole of his left shoe.

He would pick Eren up, almost always the last child at the daycare center when he arrived, trying to ignore the reproachful looks the sitters and aides gave him as he scooped Eren into tired arms and walked him home. His hands moved mechanically by then, mashing food for Eren into manageable little spoonfuls, and would try to keep his eyes propped open while Eren giggled and smeared carrot all over his chin and the stack of bills on the battered Formica table, and for a few moments Levi could pretend the bills didn't have scars of red streaked all over them.

A bath. Levi barely mustered the energy each night to force Eren into a bath. More stuffing of tiny limbs into tiny pajamas, setting Eren down into his bassinet immediately after and smiling tiredly as he grabbed a battered plush toy and promptly stuffed it into his mouth.

A goodnight kiss. Always a goodnight kiss.

Eren would smile up at him, and no matter how many times it happened, Levi was still shot through with pain, because he looked so much like _her_.

"Goodnight, Eren," he would murmur. Some nights it was hard to keep the choked note out of his voice.

"Nie!" Eren would chirp back, and would promptly roll onto his side and fall asleep, snoring energetically with tiny whistles.

Levi would lie down, stare at the car lights spinning across the cracked ceiling, and for a few moments could pretend that this was all a dream, a nightmare that would be gone by the time he opened his eyes.


	2. The Broken Clock

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Maybe we'd marry and we'd work it out fine,   
> Some other time, some other time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Paint - The Paper Kites.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7pB1IcnK3Q). 
> 
> Please listen before or during reading so you can get a fuller emotional experience from the chapter, as I think it sets the mood quite well.

Levi wakes up at exactly 6:04 A.M., the rosy morning New York light drifting in through his window, already tinged with a faint gray layer of smog from the early morning commuters. And it may or may not be 6:04 A.M.; that's just what the cracked school clock on the wall opposite Levi's bed says. And even though it's 6:04 A.M., well, 6:05 A.M. now, the minute hand sliding over neatly against the big Roman "1", half of it disappearing into a crack that runs over the diameter of the glass screen. Levi had picked it up from a yard sale in Queens for $3, and with a change of batteries, it worked just as good as new.

Work started at 8. Levi wasn't exactly sure why he was up so early. He hadn't been sleeping well the past few nights, waking up in a cold sweat in the grey pre-dawn because he thought he maybe heard Eren crying or whimpering, like he'd gotten his finger stuck in between the bars of his bassinet and was frantically tugging, pulling knuckles and joints out of their sockets in a desperate attempt to free himself. He thought that maybe he heard Eren babbling to the ceiling. He thought maybe he could feel her hand resting on the curve of his shoulder, her mouth pressed to the area between his shoulder blades, her hair curling against his skin and tickling him awake.  
  
In this case, it was the last. He opened charcoal eyes, a smile bubbling on his lips, and he rolled over with a grin, ready to wrap his arm around her, because this was a world where they were still together, a world where the bills were paid and they lived in a place where the ceiling wasn't cracked and the wallpaper wasn't leaking.

He was expecting her to be there. He was.

His heart ached, looking at the blank space in the mattress where she should have been. The cracked clock tick tocked back at him, mocking with its brokenness, and Eren was still fast asleep; Levi could hear his snores, loud even from here.

He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, trying to quell the tears massing behind his eyelids. Despite his efforts, the tears tickle the tops of his cheeks and trickle down over the bridge of his nose; he can taste salt at the corners of his lips. He took deep breaths, the exhale of one leading directly into the inhale of the next, until he was sobbing, pressing his palms tight to his mouth and praying Eren wouldn't hear him and wake up. He wrung his hands together, interlacing the fingers and squeezing, tightly, as though the pain in his knuckles might be able to make up for the throb inside.

She had died almost a year ago now, but that didn't stop him from waking up some mornings and mistaking the warmth of his tangled blankets for the pressure of a caring hand.

Sure, it was getting easier. She sometimes wasn't the first thing he thought about when he woke up, sometimes wasn't the last thing he thought about when he went to bed, and sometimes he could look at Eren and not want to scream. Sometimes.

On this particular morning, he watches the clock tick-tocking away through tear-glazed eyes, the thin red needle clicking away the seconds of his life until he can breathe normally again.

The batteries must be on their last legs or on the fritz or something, because when Levi opens his eyes again, the hands are spinning wildly around the cracked glass face, and just like that, time is erased, spiraling dizzy into the future.

* * *

Eren wakes up at a quarter to seven, his babbling rousing Levi out of his stupor, jerking his attention away from the still wildly spinning clock. He smiles happily up at Levi, and Levi can just barely bring himself to return the grin, because when Eren smiles, he has her dimples making tiny pockets in his cheeks, and Levi is still too upset to really put his heart behind it.

Eren continues babbling at Levi, unintelligible toddler talk, tugging at the collar of his starched shirt and at strands of Levi's hair even as Levi sat him on the edge of the sink and held him at a distance to avoid any wayward toothpaste spatters as he brushed Eren's not-quite-complete teeth. Eren was more than happy to dribble minty foam down his chin, which Levi washed away after Eren spit out his mouthful of green bubbles with a giggling squeal that Levi felt was surely loud enough to rouse the dead, or at the very least, the next door neighbours, who true to form he could hear start to move around in their apartment. The walls were thin.

He feeds Eren his oatmeal, which Eren accepts without complaint, something for which Levi is unduly grateful. He bundles Eren up in layer upon layer of clothes, tying a small scarf around his neck and stuffing the tips of his ears into an impossibly tiny hat. Eren waddles toward the front door, turning back to look at him imploringly when he cannot reach the doorknob. Levi leaves the dishes in the sink, takes another quick look at his reflection in the spotty mirror in the bathroom, straightening his name plate, and then shoves his feet into worn shoes, slipping his wallet [discouragingly thin] and keys [discouragingly sharp and rusty] into a coat [discouragingly holey] pocket.

"Alright," he tells the boy, who peeps up at him with bright turquoise eyes, her, her, her all over again. "Let's go."

* * *

He deposits Eren at the daycare centre, and Eren run-waddles away from him with a fresh gale of giggles bursting from his throat as he finds his friends. Levi crosses his arms over his chest, wrapping fingers around upper arms in a search for warmth, smiling at the retreating back of his son and feeling a tightness in his throat.

It is always so easy to leave.

He is turning to walk the nine blocks to work when he hears a frantic pitter-patter of little footsteps behind him, and before he can turn, there is an insistent weight wrapping itself around his knees and calves, the solid hardness of a child's head pressing into the backs of his legs.

"Bye!" Eren shouts up at him, grinning when Levi twists his head to look back down at him, obviously proud of his new word. "Bye, Papa!" New words.

Levi dislodges his legs from Eren's death grip, turns around, kneels, gravel digging into the knees of his pants, and wraps Eren in a hug, breathing in the soft scent of oatmeal and toothpaste and Johnson's Baby Shampoo.

"Bye, Eren," he tells the child, straightening out the collar of Eren's jacket and hoping that the boy cannot see the tears, fresh, pooling at the corners of his eyes. "I'll see you later, okay?"

Eren nods enthusiastically, and turns to run back to his friends again. Levi straightens up, brushes gravel from the knees of his slacks, watches his son's retreating back.

It is easy to leave, but Levi finds that, this particular morning, at 7:19 A.M., it is impossibly hard.


	3. The Shattered Illusion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And at once I knew, I was not magnificent."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Holocene - Bon Iver](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWcyIpul8OE).

The New York sun rises up over the tips of the skyscrapers, bouncing off the glittering glass windows and shining brightly into Levi's face, making him draw up a hand to shield his eyes from the brilliant glare. As he walks the nine blocks from Eren's daycare to work, his breath spills through the air in little clouds of white, a thin trail of steam following him like a smoker. Levi hasn't taken a drag off a cigarette in almost two years, and though he'd never have claimed to be a die-hard smoker, there were some mornings, like this one, where he wished for the burning taste of nicotine, heavy on his tongue and comfortingly warm in his lungs.

Lucky Strikes had been his poison of choice. He liked the name, liked what it stood for, that maybe your destiny was locked in someone else's possession and that maybe it wasn't all that bad. He still remembered the smooth feel of the polished cardboard in the palm of his hand, the gloss of the red bull's-eye silky against the pad of his thumb as he rubbed against it, its comforting weight in his pocket, his mouth aching for a taste even when he knew perfectly well that cigarettes could kill you, could turn your lungs black with tar and sin.

Yet.

Every cigarette back then had felt like a blessing, a communion, holding the smoke in his lungs until he felt like he would die to make sure he was still alive, that he was still real.

But she had hated the smell of smoke, hated the way it clung to his hair and his clothes whenever he came in, balancing the week's groceries in a flimsy paper sack. She'd balanced Eren on her hip, still just a tot, all eyes, and had wagged her finger at him, telling him that if he really loved her he would stop smoking and she would stop finding trails of ash on the windowsill.

And he had loved her. But though Lucky Strikes stopped showing up on the receipts every month, though he hadn't felt the hot suck of tar in his mouth even a single time, it hadn't been enough.

And now there was Eren to consider. Levi was an adult, free to do as he liked, free to dye his lungs and lips black as night if it so pleased him, but Eren was a different story.

He sighs at the crosswalk, the hotel looming up big and brilliant just across the street, and he shuffles from foot to foot, rubbing his hands up and down his arms in his holey coat, trying to keep warm and failing. All around him, the city was waking up, schoolchildren laughing and tugging at each other's braids and neckties as they walked single file on the sidewalk, hopping over the cracks in the pavement and clutching binders and textbooks in scrawny arms. Men and women in sharp black suits and pointy shoes tapped along the streets, talking loudly into mobile phones and Bluetooths, balancing briefcases and lattes from Starbucks, because they were on their way to work, too, juggling billion-dollar deals and holding meetings with international ambassadors.

The homeless, emerging from the park and whatever doorways and back alleys they'd managed to find shelter in the night before, holding grubby hands up over their faces and squinting in the bright morning light.

"Please, sir, just a little spare change?" A cup jingling to his side.

 _Look at me_ , he wants to say. _I'm not much different than you. Do you think this is the man I dreamed of becoming when I was a little boy? Take a good look, and tell me if you think that's so._

But he doesn't. Levi keeps his head down, stares at the laces of his shoes, and pretends not to see. He doesn't want to think about what it would be like if the answer was 'yes,' if the illusion was shattered and this was really all there was to it. 

* * *

 

He punches in to work at precisely 7:51 A.M., adjusts his name plate (LEVI A., in small, raised capital letters embellished in brass) on his starched shirt, and takes another deep breath before quickly and precisely rolling up his sleeves into cuffs around his forearms. He fills his cart, buckets of water from the tap, bottles of cleaning fluid, cans of aerosol air freshener, other cleaning paraphernalia until his hands come away smelling like talcum powder and bleach and lemon.

"Hey, Levi!" one of his coworkers shouts at him. "I'll trade you 5102 for 3307 and some of the lower rooms."

His hand clenches involuntarily around the handle of the mop he is currently transferring to his cart. 5102 is one of the Four Seasons' Presidential Suites, an all-day job, but if one had a few good friends who were willing to shirk a bit of their duties to help you, one could finish before the day was over, could spend that extra time soaking with bath salts in the deep-sink whirlpool tub, staring out over the city and pretending for a few precious moments that one had enough.

But, given that opportunity, he would do nothing of the sort. Given a few extra hours, he'd go pick Eren up, take him to Central Park to play, maybe scrounge up some stale slices in the back of the breadbox to take with them to feed to the ducks.

And, he rationalises with himself, the Manhattan Bedroom Suite isn't that bad. It's nowhere near as big as the Presidential, and he could probably get it done in half the time it would take him to do 5102...

He worried at his bottom lip, lost in thought.

"Well?" his coworker asked, tapping his foot impatiently against the tiles. "Deal or no?"

She'd been saving up for Room 5102, squirreling away every penny and dime and nickel that she found lost in the cushions of the sofa, punching him in the arm when he laughed. "You'll see," she had huffed, the loose change clinking into the jar they kept on the top shelf of the pantry. "One day I'll have enough to stay there, and then we'll see who's laughing at whom!"

But that had been before. Hands dipped into the jar quickly after that, frantically counting out coins, counting, recounting, a third time, hoping beyond hope that the next time would yield more. It never did, and it was never enough, and Room 5102 became something like a bittersweet thought.

He forces his hand to relax, his fingers trembling violently around the wood.

"Yeah, sure," he says, struggling to keep his voice level. He stares at his feet, lining his toes up precisely against one of the seams in the tile floor, and listens to his coworker's shoes tap-tapping rapidly away, to Room 5102, to Heaven, to Hell.

* * *

 

3307 certainly isn't the Presidential Suite, but nor is it a place to be scoffed at. The Four Seasons's Manhattan One-Bedroom Suites occupy the 33rd to 39th floor of the hotel, and at a going rate of over $4000 a night, Levi can't help but feel ashamed of his empty wallet, the hole in the bottom of his shoe, as he taps at the mahogany door out of politeness before sliding his key card and pushing it open. The door slides open on well-oiled hinges, a whisper of disturbed air admitting him into the room. The morning sunlight streams in, bright through the gauzy ivory curtains, and as he gently nudges the door closed behind him, he takes a deep breath and savours the silence, quiet, peaceful, completely different from the silence in his apartment in the middle of the night. He can actually hear himself think in a place where time doesn't go racing away from him like the headlights spinning across the ceiling, can hear his thoughts loud and crystal clear, without a toddler babbling for his attention ten feet away.

He assesses the room, hands on his hips, before bending down and reaching into the bottom shelf of his cart for a foldable vacuum. He plugs it into a wall socket, gently nudging the cart to the side as he takes the vacuum's handle in hand, turns it on. It roars to life, shattering the quiet peace instantly, and he thinks that perhaps it is better this way as he manoeuvres the vacuum in neat, straight lines across the cream carpet.

The whispers can't start up. Not when it's loud, not when the sun is blinding him, not when the Presidential Suites are 18 floors up, out of sight and out of mind. Not like this.

* * *

 

The next few hours fly by, the position of the sun gradually making an arc of golden light across the carpet and furniture as Levi cleans, his shadow stretching longer and longer across the room. He dusts, mops, runs the bathtub through with lavender and lemon cleaner, rolls up his sleeves and scrubs furiously at the almost-invisible ring around the drain. He polishes the silver faucets until he can see his reflection, elongated and upside down, in them. Stands on tiptoe to shine the last inches of glass at the top of the windows, tugs at the linens on the bed, making crisp corners and tight sheets with clinical precision.

Levi checks the clock on the nightstand, which reads 11:52 A.M., and thinks that perhaps he can spare just eight minutes of his life. He eases himself into one of the plush armchairs, his back and feet aching, tilts his head back, and closes his eyes, mouthing the precious four hundred and eighty seconds away.

Times like this, quiet, the air scented with lemon and lavender and the slight acrid tang of bleach, he can pretend that she is still alive. That she will be there when he opens his eyes, swatting at his shoulder with a feather duster and telling him to move his feet, she has to clean underneath the sofa.

"Um, excuse me?" she used to ask, tapping her foot on the floor. He can almost hear her voice again now -

"Um, excuse me?" is repeated, and he jolts upright, because that voice distinctly isn't hers and has no place in the two-minute fantasy he indulged himself in. He whirls around, towards the door, where a tall blonde man is standing, a silvery suitcase by his leg, looking at him with bemusement written all over his face. His shoulders are broad, strong, sharp and clean-cut in his suit jacket, a midnight blue tie loose around his throat, as though he tugged on it in the lift on the way up.

"I'm sorry, did I interrupt you?" the man asks again, and Levi struggles to pull his gaze away from the man's eyes, which are the blue of freedom, of the sky on a cloudless summer day, of her favourite sundress, which still occupies a hanger in his closet, the cotton starting to fade. "I know I'm checking in a bit early, but by all means don't let me bother you," the man continues, now advancing into the room, his leather shoes leaving whispers of indents in the freshly vacuumed carpet.

Levi finds his voice again as the man brushes past him, the soft, musky scent of Calvin Klein cologne following in his wake. "Oh, no, it's fine," he manages past the lump in his throat. "I was just leaving."

The man doesn't say anything else, and when Levi looks over his shoulder, he is pulling pressed suits in vacuum wrap out of his luggage and unwrapping them, hanging them neatly in the closet. Levi would wager that one of the suit sets probably costs more than his monthly expenses, and he turns back around, biting the inside of his cheek against the jealousy that rises up, unbidden.

The man calls him back as he is about to push his cleaning cart out the door. "Here," he says, jogging over to Levi, something folded in his hand. "Thanks for cleaning the room so well."

Levi doesn't look at the bill until he is safely ensconced in the service lift, where he unfolds his trembling fingers to look at crumpled green. Andrew Jackson stares up at him, and as he reveals the president's face, a crumpled slip of white tumbles out, flutters to the ground. He stoops to pick it up, unfolds it.

"I won't tell." Written in bold, dark capitals. Levi's breath catches in his throat for a moment before a flood of relief spills through him, and he leans back against the wall of the lift, letting his eyes fall shut, the twenty curled tightly in his fist.

 


	4. The Price of Happiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "If I forgot who I am, would you please remind me? Oh, because without you, things go hazy."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Hazy - Rosi Golan + William Fitzsimmons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TwFVlMcijo).

Eren is so proud of his new words that he insists on shouting them at Levi the entire way home, even though Levi sighs in mock exasperation and tells the toddler that shouting next to Papa's ear is really not helping anybody, and isn't Eren a big boy now, and shouldn't he be walking by himself? Eren shakes his head violently no at this, and clings to the collar of Levi's shirt, more insistent, and burrows his head into Levi's neck, all soft, smooth, warm skin and hot puffs of breath.

"Bye, Papa!" he says again, even as Levi unlocks the door to the apartment and shoulders it open, Eren still clutching tightly to the now-wrinkled fabric of his shirt.

"Bye?" Levi asks, setting the boy down, and standing up, massaging the ache in his shoulder. "Are you going somewhere?"

Eren looks earnestly up at him, puckering his mouth as if in deep thought and frowning so that a little crease appears between his fine eyebrows, just like hers had. Levi's shadow paints itself against the far wall, brushing the peeling wallpaper over with a coat of darkness, and Eren's, small, lumpy, because he is still in his coat, barely reaches halfway up the couch. It is the only piece of furniture he kept from her, an old, peach sofa they'd picked out together at a yard sale, that she said reminded her of spring. The cushions are lumpy, now, the springs underneath probably broken, and there are countless stains on the fabric. There, the smear of paint on the left armrest, from when she'd wanted to repaint the bedroom to something more cheerful; a smudge of lipstick on the back, maybe from where she'd fallen asleep and rubbed her face against the sofa; a streak of fingerprints, greasy or oily or something. Levi had been meaning to sell it, or donate it to Goodwill if they'd have it, for the past year and a few months, but every time he got it in his mind to do so, he found an excuse not to. He was loath to admit that this refusal had anything to do with the past summer, where it had been so hot that he'd taken Eren out of the bedroom and lain down with him on the sofa, sweating away the evenings in torn undershirts and cotton boxers, and wondering if maybe he could still smell her perfume in the cushions.

"Noooo," Eren says after a long while of contemplation, so long that Levi has to struggle to remember what the boy had been responding to.

"No?" Levi asks, opening the refrigerator, discouragingly bare. A few stray slices of bread, a half-full pot of orange marmalade that probably had seen better days, an almost-empty carton of milk. He checked the pantry, checked every other cabinet in the kitchen, trying to see if there was anything else. Levi gathered the options, placed them on the linoleum of the kitchen counter, examined them with a frown. It was rather depressing, if he was being honest. There were some old tins of soup whose labels had started to fade and rub away so one could no longer tell what the contents were, not without opening them. Some instant noodles, a few miserable-looking carrots, a packet of corn flakes, meat in a can. Levi could barely remember the taste of steak. "No, you're not going anywhere?"

"No!" Eren shouts up at him from the general vicinity of his knee, his tiny fingers digging into the linen of Levi's slacks.

"Well, I'm glad," Levi tells him, turning away from the potential dinner options, and squatting down to Eren's level, dislodging the little hand dug into his slacks in the process. Eren studies him, lifting little hands to pat at Levi's cheeks and tug at the strands of hair that have started to fall over his forehead. Levi takes one, presses a kiss to the palm, which is just barely wider than his mouth. "I just brought you home. You had fun all day, so I'd hope you're not going to go anywhere." As an afterthought, he asks, "Did you have fun today?"

"No!" Eren squeals, but he is grinning at his little white lie, all dimples and tiny, pearly teeth. If he had nothing, Levi was determined that his son would at least have good dental hygiene. "No, Papa, no fun!"

"No fun, hmm?" Levi asks, tickling Eren under the chin and smiling as he shrieks in laughter, squirming in his puffy coat, eyes crinkling sharply at the corners. "Well, that's no good." Remembering the $20 in his pocket, good, solid, untaxed money, and recalling the meager dinner options, he tells Eren to put his shoes on again. "Perhaps I can give you a little bit of fun, if you haven't had any today yet," he says. "And you haven't had any fun today, have you?"

Eren giggles into his hands as he stuffs his feet into his impossibly tiny shoes. "No, Papa!" he says, his eyes shining with conviction, even as he blatantly lies. "No fun!"

"Yeah," Levi says, grinning back and ruffling the boy's already messy hair. "I didn't think so."

Eren holds his arms up, waiting for Levi to pick him up. Levi frowns a bit at this, holding the door open. "Come on, Eren, Papa's back is hurting a little bit, and you're more than capable of walking on your own two feet. Just for a little while. Can't you do that for Papa?"

"No!" Eren replies, but his voice quivers a bit, and against his better judgment, Levi looks him in the eye and finds just the smallest threat of tears, something that never fails to make his heart wrench in his chest. He sighs, looks up toward the cracked ceiling, pinching the skin between his eyebrows, asking for patience. Eren clings to his knee, plopping himself down onto Levi's shoe and ensuring that Levi will not have an easy time getting anywhere.

"Okay, alright, enough already," Levi mutters, bending down, ignoring the ache in his shoulder and back as he bends down, hands open. "Get up."

Eren is all smiles again, allowing Levi to pick him up, and latching on to Levi's shirt as Levi settles an arm under his bottom and marches out the door.

* * *

 

The McDonald's a few blocks away from their apartment is crowded beyond belief. Of course Eren knew what the golden arches against the red background stood for, and he bounces excitedly in Levi's arms as Levi carries him toward the restaurant, making sure to step extra carefully over the cracks in the pavement.

"Papa has to put you down now," Levi explains to him, setting Eren down on the black-and-white linoleum tiles. Eren stuffs a few fingers in his mouth and clings to Levi's knee, looking around with wide eyes at the laughing, eating people. Toddlers by the window, banging colourful, plastic toys against the tops of the tables while their parents coax them into eating French fries and chicken nuggets.

At the counter, half-dragging Eren along with him, Levi orders a cheeseburger Happy Meal, "for a boy, of course," he says, when the cashier frowns at Eren in confusion, trying to determine his gender. He hands over the twenty, crisp and neat, folds the ten and five he receives back neatly into his wallet, more physical money than he's had in a while, makes sure the change is nestled safely in his pocket. He rubs the thin paper of the receipt between his fingers, ink already starting to smudge onto his fingertips.

When 84 is called, he half-drags Eren to the counter again to pick up the red box by its golden handles, and after some coaxing, convinces Eren to latch onto his hand instead as he searches around the crowded restaurant for a table. His second pass around, Eren's tiny hand a death grip around his thumb (it is going numb, by now), a pair of teenagers stands up from a table by the window overlooking the street, untied shoelaces and untucked shirts, leaving a small whirlwind of wrappers and discarded fries and empty cardboard boxes behind them. Levi quickly sits Eren down in one of the red plastic chairs - the boy can barely see over the top of the table - but Eren waits patiently, looking eagerly at the bright red box in front of him in wonder while Levi disposes of the trash and wipes the table down with extra napkins.

"Papa?" Eren asks, looking at him when he sits down, patting the top of the table, tiny hands reaching for the box.

"Yes, yes," Levi says, opening the box. "But let Papa feed you, okay? Here, do you want to sit with me, instead? You can see out the window better on my lap."

Eren readily agrees, and carefully maneuvers himself onto his stomach to get down from the chair, a little foot waving briefly in the air inches above the linoleum for a moment before he gathers up his courage and pushes himself off the chair. He waddles over to Levi, holding his arms up expectantly, and Levi scoops him up, placing him on his thigh and placing a hand on his back to steady him.

He unwraps the meal, tilting the box on its side, and holds the cheeseburger carefully in its wax paper wrapper while Eren leans forward and takes minuscule bites, leaving little teeth marks in the bread.

"Is it good, Eren?" he asks, looking down at his son while the boy chews thoughtfully, crumbs at the corners of his mouth. "Do you like it?"

Eren, however, is far more interested in the colourful, plastic toy that came with the meal, and he doesn't answer, instead just turning his head every now and then to take another tiny bite and then return to banging his toy on the table some more.

Levi smiles, presses a kiss to the top of Eren's head, and wonders what they look like from the outside. Looking in, one might think them no different, a working-class man and his son, not too well off, but well enough, having dinner. Lit by the soft warmth of fluorescent lights, shading Eren's face in a golden glow, one might even overlook Levi's bare ring finger, might even be oblivious to the fact that the boy sitting on the man's lap looked nothing like him at all. And, of course, looking in from the chilly street into a warm room, one might even be jealous, not knowing that happiness and contentment weren't granted. Far from it.

Eren eats half of his meal before proclaiming that he is full, and Levi ignores the way his stomach growls as he carefully rewraps the uneaten food, places it back in the box, and closes the box up again.

This time, Eren doesn't ask to be carried, and instead clings to Levi's thumb again as they leave, trudging the few blocks back home, his breath coming in tiny puffs of white, his cheeks rosy with the cold. "T'anks, Papa. It's fun," he says, burrowing his face into the back of Levi's knee as Levi pauses to unlock the door.

"Good," Levi says, smiling gently down at the tufts of unruly brown hair on his son's head as he waddles through the doorway. "I'm glad."

He gives Eren a bath, gently rubbing the cold away from tiny limbs, his shirt sleeves rolled up and letting Eren splash around in the tub for an extra five minutes before pulling him out and toweling him dry and wrapping him in his pajamas. He settles Eren in his bassinet before going for a shower himself, letting the alternate sprays of lava and arctic ice pound away at his back, numbing away the dull ache that has settled between his shoulder blades.

Eren is still awake when Levi pads out of the bathroom, dark hair curling against the tops of his ears with damp. His tiny fingers are wrapped around the bars of his bassinet, and he is peeking out between them at Levi, looking endearingly like a convict.

"Not tired, Eren?" Levi asks. "You look tired," he comments, as Eren tries, and fails, to stifle a yawn. "Why don't you lie down, go to sleep?"

"Cold, Papa," Eren says, pouting, even though he's wearing flannel pajamas and it feels like the same temperature inside the flat as it has been for the past few days. "Cooooold." He looks toward the bed, back up at Levi, back towards the bed again, making it very obvious what he wants.

Levi sighs, wanting to refuse, but Eren is pouting up at him again, and Levi might as well have the word 'SUCKER' tattooed across his forehead, because before he knows it, he is reaching into the bassinet, picking Eren up, and walking over to the bed. But, really, he can't say no, not to this child who is the last part of her that he has.

He climbs into bed beside Eren, tugging up the sheets around them. "You'd better not kick me while you sleep," he warns Eren in a voice that is only half-serious. "Otherwise I will be very displeased."

Eren looks solemnly at him, comprehending not a single word.

Levi sighs again, curling himself around Eren, who, despite his earlier protests, felt not a single bit cold at all. "Go to sleep, now," he says, gently placing a hand on Eren's stomach and rubbing it in soothing circles. "Another early day tomorrow."

Eren rolls over in his arms suddenly, his head - quite hard, Levi was rather impressed - banging straight into Levi's shoulder and drawing a hiss of pain from him. "Nie, Papa," he says after a moment of rubbing his forehead in confusion, pushing himself up on little hands to press a kiss to the corner of Levi's mouth, tiny lips feathering against his skin.

Levi lies awake for some time after that, long after Eren has already dropped off into dreams, staring at the headlights spilling across the wallpaper and thinking that $4.79 is a very small price to pay for happiness.


	5. The Manila Folder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "No, I don't know if it's over just yet  
> But I won't go slow,  
> And time can let the mind forget."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Over It - Relient K](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBjlB6QVpfA).

It had been an unexceptional day in early January when Erwin Smith had been pressed down into the mattress, his wife deftly unbuttoning his dress pants and tugging him out of the confines of his silk boxers, ignoring his protests that he had a meeting to attend in half an hour, and, barring that, that he didn't even really feel up to this sort of activity. She, however, had had other ideas in mind. Her social calendar for that particular week had been wiped completely clear, the dates circled in red; Erwin knew. He'd checked, after she rolled off him, sweaty and exhausted, her face pinched as she turned towards the wall, refusing to talk about it.

It wasn't that Erwin didn't want children. On the contrary. They'd been trying for three years, and Erwin was still waiting for that day when he could be woken up to a child babbling in his ear, tugging at his pajama sleeve and demanding pancakes.

And, for the past three years, Erwin had woken up to the insistent, sterile beeping of an alarm clock, and a mattress and sheets already cool beside him. With every failed pregnancy test, pink cardboard boxes flung angrily into the bathroom trash, his wife had grown colder towards him, until they stalked around the perimeters of their Manhattan loft, magnets repelling each other into different orbits, forcing themselves together for that one week out of every month in the fading hopes that maybe, just maybe, this would be the time.

There was nothing wrong with them. Erwin still remembered the humiliation of that small, tiled bathroom in the doctor's clinic, a small plastic cup clutched in his right hand while he looked down at himself and wondered exactly how he was supposed to do it. What if his hand shook, or his aim was off, and it got all over his shoes and the floor? Then he'd be stuck there for at least another thirty minutes, sweating into his shirtsleeves and growing increasingly claustrophobic. He had sighed, taken a deep breath, tried to imagine his wife.

When that failed, he tried to picture another woman, maybe someone from one of the business dinner meetings. Someone with dark hair, a perfectly nipped-in waist, serious charcoal eyes with a hint of a sparkle behind them, a chest that he could -

He'd gotten stuck there, trying to imagine the feeling of flesh cupped in his hand and trying to convince himself that that was indeed what he liked.

He couldn't. And in the end, Erwin had handed the sample cup to the doctor and had gone home to his wife, who tapped her foot on the thick carpet impatiently, her arms crossed over her chest, and asked him how it had gone. He told her it had been fine, the results would be back in a couple of days.

What he hadn't told her was that he was only able to do it by picturing a man.

* * *

It had been an equally unexceptional day in late July when the mosquitoes were out in full force and children were clamoring to be allowed to stay outside to play just a bit later that Erwin Smith had asked his wife to sit down at the dining table for a moment.

She had done so unenthusiastically, a thin eyebrow arching and her mouth pursing as Erwin pushed a sealed manila folder across the mahogany towards her.

"What's this?" she asked, picking it up and slitting it open with a perfectly manicured nail, ruby red and glossy. She pulled out the crisp, white papers inside, her eyes scanning them quickly, lingering at the bottom of the first page. At this point, she slapped the papers down on the table, a hollow, angry thunk that seemed to echo around the loft.

"Care to explain?" she snapped at him. "Have someone else lined up for you already or something? Is that it?"

Erwin had looked at her, then, really looked at her. She was still beautiful, lovely strawberry-blonde curls framing her heart-shaped face, dark eyes framed with long, thick lashes, a pouty mouth that was currently pursed in disapproval. She'd be fine, he rationalised to himself. She'd be able to get married again, maybe to somebody who put her up on a pedestal and worshipped the ground she walked on, to somebody who could give her her 2.5 children without having to hold his breath and grit his teeth and bear the weight of hot and sticky flesh and pretend it was someone, something, else.

He had been surprised when tears started to creep into her voice, clogging her throat and spilling into the corners of her eyes.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she'd asked, burying her face in her hands and taking shallow, hiccupping breaths. "Why?"

She wasn't a bad woman. She really wasn't. But Erwin couldn't take it, this silent avoidance, edging around each other's orbits three weeks out of four, the forced joinings, pretending of love and passion, that left him feeling empty. Used. Unsatisfied. Waking up to empty, silent bedrooms. The cardboard boxes crumpled in the bathroom trash. The quiet, deafening, month after month.

And then there was that other...problem, as well.

She had been staring across the table at him, her anger and sadness spilling freely down her face now, her mascara running slightly in little dark grey trails under her eyes. Tears had dripped from the point of her chin onto the papers, leaving little wet splotches in the white. The intensity of her reaction surprised him. What they had, what they'd been having, was nothing even close to an ideal union. It had been a travesty, a tragedy.

He'd opened his mouth. Closed it. She stared at him, lips trembling, waiting for an answer, an explanation.

He hadn't been able to give one. They were bubbling up under his tongue, all the reasons he'd been stocking up for just a time like this, but now that the time was actually here, he hadn't been able to say a word in the face of her anguish.

"I'm sorry," he said, quietly, pathetically, knowing it was not enough to patch together the rent he'd torn in their union. "I'm sorry," he murmured again, not meeting her eyes, the words falling flat, empty between them while she cried, her tears staining the paper and commencing the termination of their marriage.

* * *

It was odd, Erwin Smith thought to himself on a crisp morning in late September, after the final ruling had come in, that the official document stated that, "the marriage between him [Petitioner] and her [Respondent] had broken down irretrievably and decreed that the said marriage be dissolved."

Dissolved. It was such an odd word to use, so chemical, so clinical, abandoned of all emotion and painted white. A teaspoon of salt, pure crystals heaped high on a teaspoon, stirred into water, until you could no longer see them, but when you lifted the water to your lips, you could taste it, the bitterness caking and dry on your tongue, so that you knew that once something had been there that was no longer present.

There was a tan line on his ring finger where his gold band had been. He'd placed it away, back in its black velvet box, stuffed that into a lockbox that he kept shoved into the far back of his closet so he wouldn't have to look at it.

He drowned the memories of her out with work, drawing up deals and multimillion-dollar investment contracts with other businesses, staying up late into the night at his desk with his laptop and a tumbler of whiskey close by.

He'd taken their wedding photo down from where it had hung over the fireplace, had painted over the pale patch it had left behind on the wall from years of being stationary. He had traced a finger carefully over the contours of their smiling faces, heads bent towards each other and he wondered why he'd never noticed before that the smiles never reached their eyes.

* * *

He had thrown himself into his work at JP Morgan and quickly found his bank account filling with more money than he knew what to do with. He redid the Manhattan loft, adding new decorations, taking out a wall here, putting in a bedroom and bathroom there, painting over her wall colours with soft shades of blue and green that reminded him of the sea.

He went to Las Vegas some weekends, buying business class seats on airplanes and sipping sparkling champagne as the jet ascended above the clouds into a Heaven money could buy. He spent money at the tables, laughing off his losses. He went to shows, working through the Cirque du Soleil roster and assorted musicals.

Erwin Smith had more than enough money to buy love for a night, and he'd even considered it a few times in a city where no one knew his name, amongst cool hotel sheets that would be changed promptly in the morning along what whatever temporary affection he had purchased.

But in the end, he always stayed his hand.

* * *

And now here he was, a chill morning in the middle of November, waking up in the soft warmth of the Manhattan Bedroom Suite cotton sheets and rolling over to face the floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window overlooking the rest of the city. The Empire State Building glittered off in the distance while he stretched, convinced himself to get out of bed, and stood at the window, his hair out of order, a chill from the window starting to settle into his bare chest and stomach.

He looked down at the cars, tiny, glittering beetles roaming through the grey arteries of New York, conveying God only knew how many millions of dollars, how many billions of unspoken ideas and thoughts and desires. He wondered which of those cars held people whose marriages were falling apart, dissolving grain by grain, slowly but surely so that they could hardly see it, even as they held hands across the center console and swore to themselves that they'd never fall apart, that they wouldn't become part of that particular statistic. He wondered which of those cars held people driving to their spouses, sealed, crisp manila folders riding shotgun or stuffed in the glove compartment. He wondered which of those cars were driving away, sights set on a new destiny, pale strips on their ring fingers already starting to fade and wipe away the past.

Watching life scurry by beneath him, Erwin thinks back to her face when he slid those wicked, hateful, despairing papers across the table to her, an admission that he had given up, an admission of weakness, of defeat, of surrender. His apologies had been empty, words to fill the silence, had been completely and utterly meaningless.

He let his forehead fall against the chill glass. "I'm sorry," he says again, though no one is there to hear, and he thought he'd been well used to being alone, but he can feel tears, thick and hot, welling up behind his closed eyelids, shoulders shaking with the repressed sobs of anger, of despair, of frustration of the past few months, the past few years, even, when he had to be strong because she couldn't, wouldn't be.

It is a particularly unexceptional day in the middle of November when Erwin Smith cries for the first time in eighteen years, for what he has lost and what is yet lost to him.

* * *

Levi knocks on the door to 3307 at precisely 9:30 A.M., the top of his housekeeping cart laden with a breakfast tray, a high silver dome covering a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs and browned sausage and bacon. A little wicker basket, a snow-white linen napkin lining the inside, held four slices of golden toast; a little silver dish with individually wrapped pats of butter and a little container of jam. Coffee, still steaming in its carafe, the chrome of the cream pitcher and sugar jar so highly polished Levi can make out every detail of his face in their surfaces.

He knocks again, calls out, "Housekeeping with breakfast!" this time, just for good measure.

When there isn't any response, he decides that perhaps the man inside, the tall, blonde secret keeper with eyes like her sundress, has gone out for breakfast. He sets the tray down carefully on the floor by the door, swipes his key card, idly wondering if it would be considered stealing to eat a breakfast for an absent guest, and pushes the door open. It swings open silently on well-oiled hinges, and Levi is in the process of backing into the room, tugging the cleaning supplies on the cart with him, when he catches sight of the man's back, bent, slumped against the glass of the bedroom windows, pale skin gleaming in the morning light.

Levi pauses, wondering what exactly the proper protocol is in this situation. He is about to clear his throat to announce his presence and make his apologies about barging into the room - though he had done nothing of the sort, he'd definitely knocked - when the man was in a state of undress and had obviously just woken up, when the man's back and shoulders starts shuddering.

 _Cold,_ is his first thought. _Not wearing a night shirt, leaning against the plate glass of the 33rd floor's windows would be enough to give anyone a chill._ But then the man's shaking takes on a sort of erratic rhythm, a series of rapid, subtle jolts, and Levi watches as the man lifts his right hand to his face. Moments after, a strangled sort of noise reaches him, and he realises with a sort of horror that the man before him is crying. That no matter how much money this man has, he is still broken. That money cannot buy happiness, no matter how many nights Levi has lain awake, staring up at the cracks in the ceiling, and thinking that that is definitely the case. That if he just had more money, he'd be at peace.

It is pitiful. It is horrible. And the change from Eren's dinner last night is still kept safe in his wallet, and this man is not aware that $4.79 can bring joy and a gentle forgetfulness, at least for a few hours.

Levi makes up his mind. He pushes the cart of cleaning supplies back out into the hallway, closes the door softly behind him. He bends down, picking up the tray of food again and arranging it all back neatly on the top of the cart, taking care not to spill even a single drop of cream from the brimming pitcher.

He takes a deep breath, raises his hand to knock, but this time he positively bangs on the door with his fist, hoping to God that the man inside is not deaf or hard of hearing. "Housekeeping, and breakfast!" he shouts through the door, satisfied when a strangled shout of "A minute, please!" comes back to him.

Levi waits patiently, a fair bit more than a minute, and it is 9:47 A.M. when the man opens the door, fully dressed and shaved and hair neatly combed. His eyes are still rimmed with red, though, and his voice is still a bit strained as he holds the door open for Levi and tells him to please come in.

The man sits down at the dining table while Levi drags the cart in. Levi places the breakfast items in front of him, making sure the utensils are arranged just so on the linen napkin, taking off the silver dome and placing it back on the cart.

"Sorry to disturb you," Levi says apologetically, straightening up, satisfied. "It's just there wasn't any door sign indicating otherwise, so I may have mistakenly assumed it was alright. I could come back and do the cleaning later, if you want, Mr..." He trails off.

The man looks up at him - and those eyes, those eyes - study him, and Levi holds the piercing gaze for as long as he can bear. There is something there, some sort of curiosity, some sort of overwhelming intensity, hidden behind the blue of her sundress. And, had Levi not come upon him sobbing just a few minutes earlier, he'd have thought him invincible.

 _Sad people make the strongest ones, though,_ he muses to himself as he awaits the man's response. _Even if they don't know it yet._

"Smith," the man says finally. "I'm Erwin Smith."

Levi looks back towards the table, where the man is now standing, holding out a hand to Levi. It surprises him, this leveling of the field, the fact that the man - Erwin, now that he has a name - sees him as someone higher than his position.

He takes it, noting the way his hand all but disappears in Erwin's firm grasp. "I'm Levi Ackerman," he replies, more out of polite reciprocation than any burning desire to introduce himself. Erwin releases his hand after a few moments, the warmth of his palm lingering against Levi's fingertips.

"You can clean now, I've probably put you behind schedule," Erwin says, examining each individual breakfast item. "If I'm not in your way?" he asks, looking up at Levi.

"Oh, no." Levi is quick to assure him. "It's not a problem at all. I just didn't want to bother you with vacuuming and dusting and whatnot while you're eating."

Erwin picks up a piece of toast, spreads a thin layer of butter across the top, takes a bite out of the corner that sends crumbs skittering across the tabletop. He smiles apologetically at Levi, takes up his napkin to wipe it up, when Levi reaches out, grasps his wrist loosely.

"It's okay," Levi says, and Erwin takes a second look, making an unconscious mental note of dark hair, serious charcoal eyes that had seen happier days, laugh lines soft, bracketing his mouth, almost invisible. "I won't tell." In more ways than one. 

Erwin waits until Levi is running the tub in the bathroom, drawing a bath and tossing in bath salts and testing the temperature of the water with his hand, before he sighs and lets his head fall back against the chair, staring up at the high ceilings and wishing it were all as simple as that.


	6. The Tip of Your Tongue

Levi wonders if Eren even remembers her. And, if so, what could his not-quite-two-year-old mind make of the disjointed memories floating around somewhere behind his eyelids? The first anniversary of her death was coming up quickly, and, even now, though he'd tucked all the pictures of her away into a shoebox he kept on the top shelf of his closet, he could still remember her all too well. The way her hair smelled like lavender because she didn't like any other type of shampoo. Her eyes, warm honey, melting through him with every sideways glance. He thought he saw her, sometimes, in that fuzzy period in the grey light of early, early morning when he had already opened his eyes and was willing himself to wake up fully. He thought he saw her out of the corner of his eye in the bathroom mirror, when he was brushing his teeth, peeking coyly out from behind the shower curtain and asking him if he was going to join her or not, conservation of water and all that sort of stuff.

He's not usually one given to bouts of contemplation, but it seems that with each and every passing day Eren seems to resemble her more and more, the faintest amber highlights in his brown hair whenever the sun caught him at the right angle, the way he giggled in little fits and gasps and starts, the way he looked when he fell asleep, cheek pressed against the mattress or Levi's chest or the little squashy pillow in his bassinet. He loves it and dreads it, both at the same time.

And yet.

Eren is not wholly his mother. There is another half to the equation of his son, a father that Levi has never had the chance to meet or to know, whose genes run rampant through Eren's bloodstream and through his DNA, and sometimes he will find Eren gazing off into space with an expression that Levi has never seen before. He considers it both a blessing and a curse, to know and not know that, somewhere in the world, is another father, who, maybe in a few years, will present himself in his son.

His son. He wonders now, even as eren is gaily splashing away in the bathtub, whom exactly he means. Levi considers himself Eren's father, has for a while now, but there are times like this, examining Eren's tiny fingers and toes to make sure they are all scrubbed and clean, where he feels like he has to consider it. The boy is not quite two years old yet, and Levi is all too aware of the fact that, if Eren's real father were to stop by and demand he hand over the child, Levi would not have much of an argument to keep him. Eren would be whisked away to start a new life somewhere else, and in a short while, maybe even in the span of a few months, Levi would be forgotten, tucked away in some hard-to-reach place in Eren's mind along with whatever few memories of his mother he has left.

And Levi is no stranger to disappointment, to anger, to abject confusion and despair; these are familiar emotions who crowd around the corners of his mind when he is too tired to look closely enough and shoo them away. But, tracing the plump, slippery curve of Eren's cheek and brushing away a few wayward bath bubbles with his index finger, Levi finds that he won't, he can't, give him up, let himself - or her - be forgotten.

Levi is, at present, a little over thirteen times as old Eren, and, when he had been a little boy, had looked in the mirror and thought that when he was twenty-six, he would be an astronaut. When he had been a teenager, he had thought that maybe he would be a businessman, attending classy dinners and staying at high-end hotels and wearing Giorgio Armani suits everyday. And, when he met her halfway through university, he discovered that the dreams of his childhood were meaningless in the face of his love for her. It was all-consuming, a flame that burnt away his confusion and fear for the first time, neat and clean.

He has already decided that he will bring Eren to see her grave at St. Michael's Cemetery. Wonders what, if anything, Eren will think about the grey stone meant to represent and encompass a person's entire life in a few short engraved characters. Levi wonders if Eren's father knows that she is dead, wonders if so, if he cares. He's not sure which answer he prefers, for either question.

Eren splashes him with soapy bathwater, squealing in delight as Levi is interrupted from his moment of contemplation and reaches into the tub to tickle him. "Fun, Papa!" he shouts, clapping his hands in delight when Levi splashes him back.

"Turn around, Eren," Levi says. "Let me wash your back."

Eren complies, scooting around in the tub so that his back is facing Levi. Levi, shirt sleeves rolled up, is engrossed in searching around the bottom of the tub with one hand, the other bracing him on the porcelain rim in an attempt to find the soft washcloth he used for Eren's baths, and so he doesn't notice it at first.

He pushes himself up, washcloth clutched firmly in one hand, and stops, his heart leaping into his throat.

_He had been in the shower with her, Eren sleeping peacefully in his bassinet, and she had turned around to face the spray of water to rinse the lavender suds out of her hair when he'd seen them._

_"What are these?" he'd asked, running a finger tentatively up her spine. Small, faded rubies in all different splotches, marking each vertebra like a target. "Did you fall down or something?"_

_"What?" she'd asked, eyes squinted to keep suds from falling in as she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "What are you talking about?"_

_"These." And he'd pressed a thumb into one lightly, carefully. She didn't respond, had only asked him what exactly he was doing._

And here they are, again, like hers and altogether not like hers, fainter, splotchier. Levi feels like he's about to pass out, the room spinning violently around him and the washcloth clutched so hard in one hand his knuckles are turning white.

"Papa?" Eren asks, questioning, looking over his shoulder at him, eyes squinted to keep the bathwater dripping from the ends of his hair out of his eyes. "Papa?"

Levi swallows against the lump in his throat. "Eren, does your back hurt?" he asks, the tips of his fingers skirting against the rosy splotches on Eren's skin. "Did you hurt yourself at daycare?"

Eren thinks very hard for a few moments, wrinkling his nose in concentration. "Noooo," he says, finally.

"No, it doesn't hurt? Or no, you didn't hurt yourself at daycare?"

"No, Papa! No ow," Eren proclaims, now squirming in the tub, whose water is slowly going lukewarm, clearly ready to be done with the bath and the discussion.

"And you didn't fall down at daycare or something, or scratch yourself against something?"

"No!" Eren says again, very firmly, wriggling back against Levi's hand, now limp, and the washcloth, antsy.

Levi lets Eren sleep with him again that night, though the child does kick something fierce in his sleep, his arm curled over Eren's shoulders and staring up at the cracks in the ceiling while the hours tick by, ten, eleven, twelve, and wondering why this is happening again.

* * *

He sets up an appointment with Eren's pediatrician for late Thursday morning, and prays to every higher being he can think of that they will not be shuttled through the hospital wards three times over.

_He had done that with her. Had held Eren, cradling his head in the crook of his arm while she, in another room, stuck hers out to receive the bindings, receive the needle that slid smoothly into her vein and spurted out tube after tube of crimson. She had smiled afterwards and told him she was sure it was alright._

And, the funny thing was, it had been alright. It had been alright until it hadn't.

* * *

He is in the middle of cleaning 3307 when Erwin Smith asks him if he is feeling alright.

"Levi, is it?" When Levi nods, he gestures for him to sit down. Levi reluctantly does so, wondering if he's done something wrong, wondering if he's jeopardized the tips Erwin usually leaves for him, creased neatly on the nightstand. "You've been polishing that window to within an inch of its life. Any more, I swear, and you'll have worn straight through the glass." Levi flushes in embarrassment, looks away, down at the tips of his shoes, looks at anything but Erwin, wringing the chamois cloth between his hands.

"Are you feeling alright?" Erwin asks, looking at him with concern. "You seem very...preoccupied with something."

"I'm fine," Levi mumbles, lying through his teeth. He can see the disappointment in Erwin's eyes through his reflection on the mahogany dining table. "I'm just tired, that's all."

The words are sitting there on the tip of his tongue. _I'm afraid my son is going to die, he wants to say. I didn't sleep last night because I can't stop thinking about what it will be like if he's not here, when the last part of her is gone. I am poor and I am terrified and I am a father and not one, also._

Erwin sighs, almost imperceptibly. "If you say so," he says, in a tone that indicates that he believes not a word.

* * *

It had been bothering him ever since he'd seen Levi. Levi's face was not particularly remarkable, and was not particularly memorable, but Erwin hadn't been able to shake the feeling that he'd seen the man somewhere else, before, in some other time, in some other place. It hadn't been until he'd taken a truly close look at Levi that morning, studied him across the mahogany table of the suite's dining table and asked him if he was feeling alright that he remembered.

It had been a lie. She had been pregnant, once, later on in the marriage, about a year or so ago. He had thought that maybe this child-to-be would save them, be their salvation, rescue them from destroying each other with cold looks and even colder words, pretenses of affection. The night she had told him, he had picked her up, spun her around in delight, and had pressed a kiss to her mouth, because here it was, proof in the (then-adored) pregnancy stick sitting positive on the edge of the sink, proof that the next chapter of their lives was about to start.

It had been incredibly premature, but he'd found himself poring over books full of baby names and wondering if the baby would have her eyes, or maybe the shape of his nose. Found himself hoping that the baby-to-be was at least blessed with her eyebrows, fine and tapering at the ends, instead of his.

Like most of the rest of Erwin's life, it had been another unexceptional day when his work line chattered with an incoming call, a number he hadn't recognized. "Mr. Smith?" the cool, calm voice on the other end of the line had said. After he'd affirmed his identity, the voice had asked robotically, "Would you please come and see your wife at Mount Sinai?"

He had gone, his heart in his throat, and that, he remembered, was where he'd seen Levi, or, at the very least, a man who looked remarkably like him, while he'd been hurrying to his wife's room on the third floor. He had only caught a glimpse, out of the corner of his eye, but the image had stuck with him.

Levi had been holding a baby, dark hair nestled in the crook of his arm, and he had been sobbing into the cup of his other hand, soft, shuddering gasps wracking his shoulders. Erwin had wondered about it at the time, at what could be so horrible to override internal inhibitions, to allow a man to grieve so freely, so openly, where anyone could see. Erwin hadn't been raised that way, had been taught that tears were shameful, an action reserved solely for women and very, very young children, and, if one must, at times of great emotional distress, such as the death of a parent. Erwin, at that time, had not cried in seventeen years, not since he was ten years old and weeping over his the smooth ebony polish of his mother's closed coffin at her funeral service.

Erwin had almost run into her as she was exiting a room across the hall from his wife's.

"Sorry!" she'd said brightly, amber eyes and golden hair catching the afternoon sunlight as she looked up and apologised to him. Her arm was bandaged above the elbow, gauzed and taped, and Erwin caught a whiff of lavender as she hurried past him, out to the crying man.

Her face had been pale, the same way his wife's was, almost blending into the crisp bedsheets of the hospital cot, an IV line taped to the back of her hand, her eyes closed, strawberry-blond curls spread over the pillow. Even before the nurse said anything, he'd known. He'd known right away.

"Mr. Smith? Are you alright? Would you like to sit down, you're looking a bit unwell," the nurse had said, hurrying over and easing him down into a cushioned chair by his wife's bedside.

"I'm fine," he had mumbled, lying through his teeth, even as he wanted to jump up, grab the nurse by the shoulders, the words sitting on the tip of his tongue. _No, I'm not fine, he wanted to shout,_ his voice ringing through the sterile, tile halls of the hospital. _My marriage is a sham, it will fall apart like the life inside her, it has been falling apart probably ever since the day I met her. I am a father and not one, also. Where does that leave me?_

"Sorry, I'm just tired," he'd said quietly, instead. "I think I'll just wait for her to wake up."

The nurse had nodded in understanding, and had walked away, black rubber soles tapping over the floor.

Even when she had left the room, Erwin did not reach for his wife's hand. He thought about the man crying outside, the baby cradled in the crook of his arm, and had thought that, no matter what, he would give anything to trade places.


	7. The Facades and Pretenses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Love is watching someone die."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [What Sarah Said - Death Cab for Cutie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQuVudn1-RE).
> 
> This song basically can be used as the soundtrack for the entire story.

Levi is not religious, and, in fact, had not believed in the existence of a higher being since he had been in high school. There was no concrete evidence for God; Scripture required him to make a leap of faith that he didn't feel like he would ever be comfortable making. His parents, hands full with their own mid-life crises and ailing parents of their own, hadn't noticed when he'd stopped waking up early on Sunday mornings to pile into the car with them and go to church. Or perhaps they assumed he was a growing teenage boy, like any other, and were far more interested in catching more precious minutes of sleep than going to listen to a sermon for two hours, cramped and fidgeting in the pews.

That wasn't the reason, though. Upon entering high school, Levi had begun to realise a few things about himself that he hadn't really considered before, the most important of which being that he was, inexplicably, also attracted to men as well as to women. He'd realized this after one particularly nondescript gym period, in which he'd found his eyes lingering over a strong, broad (for him, at the time) back, a scruff of blonde hair, a deep laugh that had his heart palpitating in his chest as he hid in the corner of the locker room, cowering under the lukewarm spray of a shower and praying to God to help him understand why this was happening.

There had been no answer, no voice speaking calmly in his head and outlining a twelve-step solution for him. He had spent all of high school, and, in fact, most of his aborted university career with his attitude shifting between anger and listless confusion. He pinched himself angrily, curling his hands into fists in the pockets of his jackets until his fingernails left livid little crescents on his palms whenever he found his eyes straying towards another male, because this was wrong, this was not what he'd been taught. It was immoral, it was sinful, it was disgusting, and though Levi no longer held too much stock in his parents' opinions of him, it was still not something he was prepared to accept about himself.

To that extent, he had kissed girls. Plenty of them. Even some that he hadn't loved, all in a futile attempt to convince himself that, yes, that was indeed what he liked.

He had, as of the middle of November, in the year 2014, had not had any romantic experiences with another man. He preferred to eye potential interests from a distance, because he had no idea how to go about approaching them and asking if they were into that sort of thing, or not. In his opinion, it was far better to be a spectator, staying safely back from the required lines of conduct and watching from afar for relationships that would never be.

Sure, the world was a more tolerant place. Sure, the university had an LGBT and Allies club, and all were welcome to attend, regardless of sexual orientation. Sure, Levi knew he was far from the first person to discover that perhaps his own sexual orientation had, somewhere along the line, developed branches that he hadn't expected, or perhaps even wanted.

And Levi had tried. He had attended a few meetings, a few workshops here and there, but not once had he ever told another person about his newfound identity. He hadn't even begun to fully accept it until he'd met her, and she burnt the confusion away like a match set to a spill of alcohol on tile, burning bright blue and clean and melting it away.

At that point in his life, Levi had been firmly set in the ways of an agnostic for roughly six years. He was only further compounded in his ideals of uncertainty when he had belatedly discovered, post-mortem, that she had been the closest thing to a spiritual experience he'd ever had.

At the present point in his life, his feet tapping nervously over the drab green carpet in Dr. Pierce's waiting room and Eren babbling to himself on Levi's lap, Levi is more than willing to start believing again.

* * *

"So, Eren, what seems to be the problem?" Dr. Pierce asks, a kind, jovial, big-bellied sort of pediatrician who was more than willing to get down on his hands and knees and admire your child's Lego creation at the expense of the knees of his business slacks. "Your papa" - with a smile up at Levi, blue eyes crinkling kindly at the corners - "tells me that you've got some ouchies on your back."

Eren looks up from the toy train he is currently banging against the low table in the children's examination room. "Noooo?" he says, but his voice lilts up at the end, uncertain. "No ow."

"No ouchies, hmm?" Dr. Pierce asks. "Do you mind if I take a little look? Just so we can be extra, extra sure it's not an ouchie."

Levi wrings the sleeve of Eren's coat between his hands as Dr. Pierce picks him up and sets him down on the paper of the examination seat, making it crinkle loudly and making Eren giggle and clap his hands in delight. Dr. Pierce goes through the routine check-ups first, warming up the metal of the stethoscope cup first before pressing it against Eren's tiny chest, listening to the tiny ticking clock inside him that Levi knows the rhythm of perfectly. He tests Eren's reflexes, making him squeal in wonder as his tiny leg kicks up against his will.

After the perfunctory tests are run, Dr. Pierce tugs up the back of Eren's striped shirt, his gloved fingers running contemplatively across the red splotches, which, to Levi's relief, have not mysteriously multiplied or grown splotchier since their initial discovery. "This doesn't hurt, Eren?" Dr. Pierce asks, thumb pressing gently into the red skin, much like Levi had a few days ago.

"No!" Eren shouts again, banging the toy train on the paper for added emphasis.

"Is it a bit itchy?" the doctor asks.

At this question, Eren thinks for a long few seconds, during which Levi plays out a scenario he's only all too familiar with in his mind.

_Blood tests. Readings of lists of numbers that he couldn't quite comprehend, but knowing that they were bad, bad, bad, abnormal, not right. Hospital bills, sinking them even deeper in debt. A diagnosis on life that proved to be a gross overestimation._

_Two weeks, where six months should have been._

"Yeah!" Eren's shout jolts Levi from his reverie. "Ithy."

"As I thought," Dr. Pierce agrees, tugging Eren's shirt down again, turning to Levi with a kind smile on his face. "You'll be relieved to know, Mr. Ackerman, that it's just a mild bout of eczema. Not uncommon in children at all. It's easily treatable. Have you changed your laundry detergent or his diet or any other things in your home recently?"

Levi is so woozy with relief that he takes a few moments to answer the doctor's inquiries. "No, everything's just the same as always," he replies, his head swimming. "He's been asking to sleep with me more often recently, but that's about it."

The doctor's face softens. "Perhaps he misses his mother," he says quietly, after a moment. "It's been almost a year, hasn't it? Since she passed."

Levi can only nod, unable to find the right words.

Dr. Pierce lays a comforting, solid hand on Levi's shoulder, squeezing it gently. "I'm sorry," he says softly. "It's always hard, losing someone; I can only imagine what it's like for you, right now."

After a few seconds of silence, the doctor clears his throat, meets Levi's eye again. "Well, at any rate, Mr. Ackerman," he says, "you'll be glad to know you won't have to be worrying about this little chap any time soon. I would just recommend popping by the pharmacy and picking up a tube of Aveeno Baby Moisturizing Cream, it's to keep his skin hydrated and soothe any itching he might have."

Levi is bundling up Eren's coat and herding him toward the door when Dr. Pierce adds, "Another thing I noticed. His temperature is slightly elevated, at 99.2 degrees. It's not outside the normal range, and he certainly looks like a happy, healthy child, but if I were you, I'd just keep a close eye on it. And it might just be the way his body in particular operates. Some people tend to run a bit hotter than the average."

"Alright," Levi says, smiling in giddy relief. "I'll be sure to do just that."

* * *

Erwin kept checking his watch, then his cell, then all the clocks in the Manhattan Bedroom Suite just to be sure he had the correct time. It was 10:14 A.M. on a quiet Thursday morning in November, and Erwin was even ready to admit that he was waiting for Levi. He had gotten used to the quiet man coming in at precisely 9:47 A.M. with his cleaning cart and breakfast on a tray, vacuuming and washing and dusting, a blur of intensity and dark hair and charcoal eyes as he moved soundlessly around the suite.

And Erwin, now that he had fully accepted himself for himself, was more than ready to admit that he found the other man attractive, on some base level that he couldn't explain to himself. Levi was not a conventionally attractive man, not in terms of physical appearance or expression or even in other aspects such as financial situation or quirks and mannerisms. He was not exceptional by anyone's standards.

But there had been that one instance, a year ago, catching him out of the corner of his eye on his way to see the proof of his failures, sobbing as if his heart were breaking and he couldn't stop. Erwin was fascinated, curious, and, admittedly, a bit jealous at how this man could so easily take off the facades and pretenses Erwin had spent all of his life trying to blend flawlessly into his own skin.

He wanted to know how Levi had been able to do it. Wanted to know what drove him towards it. He wanted to know everything about this man, this anomaly.

At 10:27 A.M., a knock on the door, and, with more eagerness than he would have liked, he goes over to the smooth mahogany, taking a moment to smooth down his hair and the lapels of his dress shirt before opening the door.

A woman is on the other side, dark hair and quiet dark eyes, apologising profusely for the delay in the cleaning and his breakfast. She set breakfast down on the dining table, laying out the items neatly, quickly, efficiently, saying not a word to Erwin.

He clears his throat. "Pardon my curiosity, but do you know where Levi is? He usually cleans this room."

The woman doesn't pause in her polishing of the furniture as she answers, "He's out today. I think he said something about his son being sick, and he had to take him to a doctor's appointment."

And there it is, that bitter tinge of envy and jealousy, colouring the toast in his mouth with a sour taste at the word 'son,' a reminder of what he does not have, despite his efforts. But, this time, unlike other times in the past, the envy is tempered with a sense of concern. He thinks about the shock of dark hair in the bundle resting in the crook of Levi's arm in the hospital while the other man pressed his face into his free hand and sobbed.

The woman moves professionally, clinically around the suite, polishing and shining and cleaning, and Erwin considers the fact that it may be far, far worse to lose something one already had the benefit of having rather than to have the possibility be taken away without the chance to be fully aware of it.

 


	8. The Reflection

It is as if Dr. Pierce's pronouncements regarding Eren's mother have triggered something, lying dormant in the cavities of his tiny body, waiting to be acknowledged and woken up, because the next morning, when Levi wakes up, he is more than a bit surprised to find Eren curled up against him, already awake, his eyes red-rimmed, bloodshot-looking, as though he has been crying throughout the night, out of Levi's earshot.

"Perhaps he misses his mother." The doctor's words resonate through his ears, and Levi wants to grasp Eren by the shoulders, tell him that he understands completely, that he knows all too well what it is to love and to lose and to be left wanting. "I miss her, too," he wants to say. "I have missed her and probably have been missing her ever since the day we first met, because what we had seemed too good to be true, and it looks like it was, after all."

But he says none of this. Instead, he gently lays his hand against the pillow where Eren's cheek has left a slight hollow in the stuffing, feeling for damp, for wet. There is none, and when Levi asks if Eren is feeling sad this morning, the boy just shakes his head from side to side. He neglects to note the dampness on his side of the pillow, the soreness of his eyes, because he has rationed his tears since he was a child and he has already more than cried too many over the past year.

"Eren..." He lets his voice trail off, watches the boy stuff oatmeal by big spoonfuls gleefully into his mouth some time later, as if all is right with the world and the splotches on his back are just something that comes with being a child. "Eren, do you miss Mama?"

Eren pauses, plastic spoon halfway to his mouth, clots of oatmeal on his chin. He looks questioningly up at Levi. "Mama?" he asks, fine eyebrows knitting in confusion at the new word that he has never had occasion to use.

"Yes, Mama. You remember?" Levi reaches into his back pocket for his wallet, which is still discouragingly thin but starting to fatten out a little bit from the generous tips Erwin manages to leave for him, every morning, without fail. He slides out his driver's licence from its little plastic sheath, takes out the tiny photograph pressed carefully underneath, and holds it up for Eren's inspection. It was taken before she got sick, before he had found the bruising on her back, like notes up the scale of her vertebrae, when Eren was still just a little bundle of blankets and a shock of dark hair.

Without touching the glossy surface of the photograph, Levi indicates her face, smiling, confident, healthy, framed with strands of hair glowing honey in the afternoon light. Levi is standing next to her, his hand wrapped loosely around her waist, relaxed as though they had all the time in the world, like everything in the picture was taken for granted and that nothing would change. Eren's hand, a tiny starfish, is reaching out of his bundle of blankets, grabbing at a wayward strand of her hair. The moment, captured by a benevolent passerby, preserves them on paper, for an instance a perfect family with perfect happiness.

"Mama," he says, pointing to her face. "This is Mama. Remember her?"

Eren stuffs his fingers into his mouth in contemplation, his swollen eyes peering at the woman in the photograph in curiosity. "Mama?" he says again, uncertain. His eyes rove over the picture, his face brightening when they alight on Levi. "Papa!" he squeals, clapping his hands and spattering oatmeal across the Formica table. "It Papa!"

As Levi tucks the picture into his wallet again, he pauses to take a moment to look at his former self in the glossy paper, and wonders where that happy man has gone.

* * *

Erwin is almost inappropriately happy when there comes a polite knock on his suite door at exactly 9:47 A.M. that Friday morning, and he opens the mahogany on well-oiled hinges to find Levi waiting patiently outside his door, fiddling with the collar of his starched shirt.

"Levi!" he says, hoping that his voice does not betray his excitement and his burning curiosity about the other man. "How is your son?"

Levi pauses, half in and half out of the suite. He looks up at Erwin searchingly for a few moments, during which Erwin attempts to equate the crying man in his mind with the serious, private one standing in front of him. There is a slight tinge of darkness under Levi's eyes, a slight redness rimming the charcoal of his irises, as though he has been crying, and as Erwin meets his gaze, all doubt in his mind is erased about Levi's identity as the sobbing man in the sterile hospital corridor.

"My son is fine," Levi says quietly, bending his head down to pay attention to the cart again. "He had a rash and I was just really concerned..." There is a phrase lingering in his mouth, 'especially after what happened to his mother,' but Levi does not think it would be appropriate to say, not here, not now, in this luxurious hotel suite that seems to exist in a world of its own, free from the problems of sickness and poverty and depression.

He tugs the cart in the rest of the way, has just finished arranging the breakfast table, pulling the silver dome off a plate heaped with French toast, maple syrup and butter placed neatly to the side in their own separate dishes, when his stomach growls, loudly and audibly. He stares at his hands, mortified at the sound; he had been so preoccupied that morning with Eren and the photograph that he had forgotten to eat, himself. He bites the inside of his cheek and counts to five, trying to ignore the clutching hunger in the pit of his stomach as the aroma of French toast and coffee swims through his head.

His face crimson, he hurriedly turns away, aiming to start cleaning the rest of the suite as per routine, when Erwin reaches out, grasps his wrist loosely, the circle of his fingers slack around Levi's skin. Levi pauses; this is not part of their standard procedure; Erwin is doing things off the script, and Levi is unsure what his reaction should be. Erwin's thumb is resting lightly over the pulse point in Levi's wrist, and Levi hopes that he cannot feel the way his pulse quickens underneath his skin.

"Sit." Erwin's voice is quiet, but no less commanding. "Please. Have something to eat. The cleaning can be left for another day. It's already spotless in here as it is, and I'm not too big of a fan of French toast, anyway."

Still uncertain, Levi sits down in the chair diagonal from Erwin's, looks unsurely down at the plate of French toast Erwin slides in front of him as though he's never seen anything like it before.

"Go on," Erwin says gently, resting his chin in the palm of one hand as he presses the fork and knife into Levi's slack one. When Levi is still staring, dumbfounded almost, at the plate in front of him, Erwin reaches over, takes the knife and fork back, leans across the table to cut the toast into a 3 x 3 grid. He spears one with the tines of the fork, places the handle of the fork back into Levi's hand. "It won't do your son too much good if you don't eat," he says gently, a soft reminder. At this, Levi starts back into himself, lifts the fork to his lips, and pops the square of toast into his mouth, chewing and staring with intense concentration at the rim of the china plate.

Tears prick at the spaces behind Levi's eyes as he eats, and he chews determinedly, examining the pattern on the china dishes and his upside down reflection in the silver coffeepot, trying to think of something, anything, besides the way Erwin is staring at him. It is different, Levi thinks as he swabs a square of toast over a tiny pool of syrup in the center of the plate, to be the one being helped. It is a new feeling, for once not held to an obligation of selflessness, and Levi cannot remember the last time he had been the primary target of concern. Over the past year and some months, it has always been some other pressing matter, and it feels odd, almost scary, to relinquish the facade of strength that he has been maintaining for so long.

He finds himself examining Erwin's reflection in the polished mahogany of the suite's dining table. There is a smile on full lips, soft and so unlike the thirsty curiosity in his blue eyes, that takes away Levi's breath for a moment, and he forgets to swallow as he studies the contours of Erwin's face in the wood and tries to desperately tamp down the thoughts rising to the surface of his mind. It is undeniable that Erwin Smith is a lovely, attractive man, much like the ones Levi would stare at from afar and wonder what it was like, to be them, to be with them, to possess and be possessed by them. And even though Levi has felt sure, has had clarity about himself since he met her, he finds his old confusion rising up, bitter in his throat.

Seemingly against his will, he finds his eyes straying to where Erwin's left hand is resting, palm down, on the tabletop. His ring finger is bare.

"We got divorced," Erwin says quietly, and Levi's dark eyes flash up to his for a millisecond before dropping back to the toast almost immediately. He holds his breath for a second, considering the pros and cons of his next sentence, before deciding to take the risk anyway. "It turns out that I play for the other team, and we just didn't know it until the last inning," he says, studying Levi carefully for his reaction, if any.

Levi's eyes come back up to him again, and this time there is a sort of emotion in them that Erwin cannot really label, something of a mixture between wonder and relief. Before he can dissect it, and what it might mean, Levi is clearing his throat, swallowing the last bit of French toast, and stating, quietly and matter-of-factly, "I do, too. Sometimes, at least."

"Oh?" Erwin asks, leaning back and surveying Levi with new interest. Truly, a man of infinite facets, and Erwin wanted to discover each and every one of them.

Levi is flushed, again, not meeting his eye. "Yeah," he says, quietly, fiddling with the linen napkin in his lap. From his vantage point, Erwin can see the blush dusting his cheeks in the reflection on the dining table. Levi's lips are parted slightly, as though a word is bubbling up behind his teeth and he just hasn't had the opportunity to say it yet. As Erwin watches, Levi begins to talk again, addressing his own reflection, the cupid's bow of his mouth stretching softly around the syllables. "It's funny," he murmurs, the corner of his mouth quirking up just a little bit, pulling a cheekbone into sharp relief, "you're only the second person I've told."

"It's an honour," Erwin says, truthfully. "It is." He feels that he does not have to ask who the first person is, feels already that he knows. The woman in the hospital, the one that smelt like lavender, the one with the power to bring this stoic man in front of him to tears, he is certain that she would know all about it.

Erwin Smith is not a gambling man, not really, has never felt the pull, the appeal, of the gaming tables and slot machines that other people seem magnetically drawn towards. He enjoys making calculated decisions, safe ones that are low risk. But, as he looks across the table at Levi, who is still looking down at his lap as though it contains the secrets of the universe, Erwin smiles to himself and thinks that perhaps he ought to take risks more often.

Levi, for his part, tries to ignore the slowly-blossoming seed of infatuation sprouting in the pit of his belly, but cannot help but think that perhaps the happy man in the photograph is not lost forever. 

 


	9. The Mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Light, from a dying moon, it blurs our eyes,  
> And we wear a cape of fireflies,  
> And after...the world's in bed,  
> All the ghosts come sing along but we'll forget them  
> When the morning comes.'
> 
> This is a rather heavy chapter. Apologies in advance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Along the Road - Radical Face](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv8Rf7jdozQ).

It is a frosty Sunday morning in the middle of November when Levi wakes up earlier than he expected. It is grey outside, the rim of the sun preparing to kiss the horizon of skyscrapers outside the window, and Levi rolls over onto his side, careful not to squash Eren, who is snoring energetically beside him, to squint at the clock. He has not yet changed the batteries, and the hands of the clock are positioned at 10:15, though Levi knows that this is not possible.

He sighs, rolls out of bed, shuddering as his feet touch the chilly floors as he wanders over to the bedroom window, resting his elbows on the dusty windowsill and staring outside at the apartment windows across the street. The curtains are drawn, some sort of dusty blue fabric with yellow daisies spattered across the material in a pattern that had probably gone out of fashion sometime during the 80's. On mornings like these, when the city is not yet awake yet and the streets are only speckled with a few jewels of automobiles, early morning commuters going to their jobs, Levi cannot help but wonder what it is like on the other side of those curtains. On this particular morning, he stares very hard at the - frankly - hideous fabric and tries to hold on to the dream he had been having, but it is slipping out of his mind like water through his cupped hands.

There are a few details, his memory reluctantly dredging up blurry facts for him to dwell on. Him, standing in front of a mirror, palms pressed against the glass in a gesture he would never do in real life. The bubbles of a laugh, threading a melody through the still air of his dreams. A flash of gold in the top corner of the mirror, the person standing in the doorway too far away for him to make out their face, and he watched carefully as the person walked towards him, gentle, slow footsteps that he could somehow feel behind him, their face a clear, smooth oval until, until -

That had been the moment Levi had woken up to the grey pre-dawn light of mid-November.

He stares in contemplation at the apartment windows across the street, elbows planted firmly on the windowsill, and starts when he realises that, for the first time in a long time, he has not woken up with the number of his countdown until the anniversary of her death fresh on his lips. He wonders absentmindedly how that can not have been the first thing on his mind, on this particular morning in the middle of November, how he could not have woken up thinking of the number zero.

* * *

Eren has gotten used to sleeping in on Sunday mornings, something that Levi actively and wholeheartedly encourages for the extra peace and quiet it affords, if nothing else. But this is not any Sunday morning, this is day 0 of year 1, and Levi is already getting antsy, feels the walls of the apartment closing in tight and suffocating around him because he wants to, needs to see her again.

He paces impatiently around the apartment as the sun rises over the horizon, spilling golden into the empty rooms and painting Eren's cheek with the shadows of his eyelashes, waiting for the boy to wake up, trying to still his hands from just simply nudging the child awake instead. He walks out to the living room, his hands rubbing up and down his upper arms to ward off the cold, examines the stains on the couch, wonders if perhaps, after seeing her, he will have enough willpower to finally get rid of it. He paces back to the bedroom, sliding open the closet, which squeaks on its rusty track, and takes big handfuls of her fading blue sundress, pressing it against his nose and searching for any lingering trace of her perfume, like rain falling after a long, dusty day. Finally, when he can absolutely take it no longer, he sits back down on the edge of the mattress, reaches out to trace a light finger over the curve of Eren's cheek, which is flushed with sleep and dreams.

"Wake up, kiddo," Levi murmurs gently, poking the corner of Eren's gaping mouth gently. "It's time for breakfast." Without the clock working, Levi has no idea if that's true or not, but he continues prodding Eren's cheek lightly until he finally squirms awake. He pushes himself up, strands of brown hair falling messily across his forehead, his tiny mouth open wide in a yawn as he rubs his eyes with curled fists.

"Don't do that," Levi says gently, tugging away Eren's hands. "You'll make your eyes all red again." His warnings are in vain, though, because Eren's eyes are still red-rimmed and tender-looking, though when Levi asks if they hurt, Eren simply shakes his head no.

By the time he has Eren seated at the Formica kitchen table with a small bowl of oatmeal, Levi's stomach is tied up in knots and he cannot bring himself to eat even a single bite, nudging away the sloppy spoonfuls Eren is insistent on offering him. He sits across from Eren at the kitchen table, his head resting in the cup of his palm, watches the child eat as his mind strays elsewhere, to other, more pressing topics.

* * *

Levi keeps a firm hold of Eren's hand as they step on the subway. The boy's other hand is curled tight around a fistful of Levi's faded jeans. At this hour, there is barely anybody on the carriage; a man with a newspaper draped over his face, splayed out across a bank of seats, snoring volubly, his hands resting, palms up on either side of him, an offering of emptiness to be avoided and neglected. He reeks of sweat and alcohol, and Levi takes great care to drag Eren to a group of seats at the opposite end of the carriage.

At this end is a girl, her closed eyes ringed with mascara and glittery eyeshadow, the lipstick on her mouth, garish in this lighting, flaking and feathering at the corners. Her dark hair falls over half of her face, a glossy curtain, as she breathes slowly, softly, deeply, her peace a sharp contrast to the dark walls and blue lights of the subway system flashing outside the Plexiglas windows. Her legs are splayed out in an angle to each other, holes in her fishnet stockings like cigarette burns, though the skin underneath looks unscathed, unscarred. Her head is leaning gently against the smudged glass of the carriage, swaying gently in tune with the clacking of the tracks.

Innocence, masquerading as guile. Levi sighs, leans back against his seat, Eren bouncing along on his lap, and wonders if it is hard to pretend like that.

* * *

This late in the year, the trees in St. Michael's Cemetery in Queens are all but bare, a thick coating of freshly fallen leaves covering the ground and cement sidewalks that weave through the graveyard. The trees become dark, slender sentinels against the grey sky, jutting up to kiss the clouds with questing branches. Lower, closer still, grey stones spurting from the earth like teeth, etched, engraved with a life in a word and a range of numbers.

Eren, as though he senses the seriousness of the place, clings tight to Levi's hand and burrows his face deeper into the scarf Levi had wrapped around his neck earlier that morning. It is quiet, tranquil, inside the ironwork gates of the cemetery, and for the first time in a long time Levi feels like he can breathe.

His breath leaves puffs of white hanging soft in the air, dispersing reluctantly behind him like the trails of ghosts, as he walks toward her grave. He knows where it is, has known where it is for exactly a year now, has walked this path forever in his dreams, but it seems surreal, feeling the leaves mush beneath his shoes as he walks to find her again. He has made excuses for ages now, for why he could not come, excuses that even to his own ears sound guilty and lackluster. 'It is too soon,' 'I want to let Eren sleep a bit longer,' 'I will surely break if I see your name one more time, written in stone.'

Her grave lies somewhere beyond the next few rows, a simple, smooth plaque embedded in the ground, and Levi pauses for a moment by a marble statue of an angel, steeling himself for the upcoming encounter.

"Papa?" Eren asks, tugging at his index finger. Levi looks down at him, bends down to adjust his scarf, wind it around the lower half of his face, rosy with the cold.

"Mama is just a little bit farther," Levi says, more to reassure himself than anything, his smile wavering at the corners as Eren studies his face with a gravity beyond his almost-two years. Levi feels like he can see the man the boy will become. "Here. Come on," he says, straightening up and clearing his throat. "I'm sure she misses you a lot, you've gotten so big since she last saw you."

Levi doesn't really believe this, doesn't believe that whatever is left of her would choose to hang around this quiet, empty, open place. He hopes that, if she is anywhere, she's been watching.

* * *

The marble stone beside her plaque is a dual marker, a fact Levi had neglected to note the first, and last time, he'd seen her. The names don't take hold in his mind, because all of a sudden, even though he hadn't felt it coming, he can feel tears clogging thick and hot in his throat, as his eyes scan over her again.

She lies somewhere beneath them, hands clasped softly over her withered body, staring serenely up at the insides of her own eyelids. The funeral director had combed her hair artfully, had arranged it to distract from the hollow cheeks, the skin stretched too tightly across her face, had smoothed out the furrow of pain between her eyebrows so that she had looked peaceful, if sunken, in death.

_'Don't cremate me, Levi,' she'd said, reaching out with trembling fingers and clutching at his own, desperate and strong in their weakness. 'I'm scared of fire.'_

_"No, no, no," he'd whispered, pressing a kiss against her forehead and squeezing her hand gently. "You're not going to die, not for a long, long, long time."_

_It had been a lie, and they'd both known it, but Levi at that time had not been anywhere near prepared to have that discussion with her. He had lied, because he had loved - he loved - her._

_But a few mornings later, when he woke up with his arms wrapped around her already-cooling body, he had remembered._

_Her funeral had been quiet, an act of ceremony than anything else. It had been Levi, Eren, a few old university friends of hers. The church had been depressingly empty, smelling sickeningly of incense and lilies, and Levi hadn't even managed to get a quarter of the way into the short eulogy he'd prepared for her before his voice had cracked and his knuckles had gone white, clutching at the edges of the pulpit for purchase as he choked on his breath, on the cloying atmosphere._

_Soft murmurs, soft hushes, a priest leading him away, rubbing his back soothingly as someone else went up to pay respects to her. Levi vaguely remembered leaning on the priest for support some time later, as the coffin was closed, carried out to the place where she would be buried._

_Her plaque had already been set at the head of the gaping hole in the earth, dark and moist. The coffin was lowered carefully, settling gently at the bottom. Levi had vague memories of the priest helping him bend down, gently packing a loose handful of loamy soil into Levi's slack hand, helping him toss it in to sprinkle the polished white wood of her coffin with the makings of her final bed._

A familiar voice jolts him out of his reverie, and he comes back to the present to find Eren sitting down next to the plaque, his chubby fingers tracing over the engravings curiously. Levi watches the boy through a gloss of tears, hanging heavy in his eyes.

"Petra is a pretty name," the voice says, quietly, and out of the corner of his eyes, Levi can just make out the beginnings of a man, a bouquet of flowers clutched in hand.

"It means 'stone,' or 'rock,' or something like that," he murmurs, swallowing roughly past the clot of tears in his throat and wiping furiously at his eyes with the back of his hand. "Or at least I think it does, she told me once."

"I'm sorry." Erwin's voice is quiet, and Levi feels the situation absolutely ridiculous, half-mad already with remembered grief. Erwin shouldn't be here, not at all, Erwin only exists in the opulence of Room 3307, and it is impossible that he is here, standing next to him, wrapped in a long, dark coat and scarf, the cellophane wrapping around the bouquet of lilies crinkling in the slight breeze. "She was too young to die."

"Yes," Levi whispers. "She was only halfway to a mid-life crisis. I think I've had hers for her, though. A crisis, that is, not a mid-life one, unless it's possible to have a mid-life crisis at 26."

He is all too aware that he is babbling, that Erwin probably doesn't care, doesn't need to know, and he wonders if it is particularly damning, to be in her company and his at the same time; even though Levi is certain she would want him to be happy in her absence, and even though Levi is still uncertain about the direction, if any, his relationship with Erwin will take, he cannot help but feel like he is cheating. Throughout Levi's mutterings, however, Erwin remains quiet, passive, letting Levi talk, his words hanging in the air like bubbles for just a fraction of a second.

"I certainly hope that that crisis isn't your mid-life one," Erwin says, during a long pause in which Levi tries to rack his mind for something else to fill the silence. "Fifty-two is no time to die, either."

Levi looks at him, now, the words stuck in his throat as he looks fully at the other man. Erwin is standing to Levi's right, in front of the grave with the dual marked tombstone, his face quiet, unreadable, no trace of tears in his eyes. Levi can only imagine how he himself looks at the present moment; he's never been an attractive crier, his face going blotchy and red and messy. But Erwin isn't looking at him, his attention instead focused on the marble in front of him. Levi turns his gaze towards it.

'ANITA SMITH, 1966-1997, Beloved Mother and Wife' is etched on the left. The words on the left are just a name and a date, 'MICHAEL SMITH, 1997-1997.'

"One day I was going to be a big brother," Erwin says quietly into the stillness, nodding towards the marble. "And the next I wasn't."

_The last time Erwin had seen her alive was when she had been hunched over in pain, telling him to go call his father and standing by the front door, her overnight hospital bag clutched tightly in one hand._

_"By the time we get back," his father had said, ruffling his fine blonde hair with an unprecedented affection that he had never felt again, "you'll be a big brother!"_

_He had curled up by the bay windows in the living room, overlooking the driveway, waving away his grandparents' offers of games and food, impatient for the moment when his parents' car would roll back up the gravel slope, bearing a new playmate and companion. The minutes stretched into hours, morning into night, and finally he had fallen asleep, his cheek smushed against the chilly glass._

_His parents had come home after a week or so, during which Erwin maintained his vigil by the front windows, only breaking for naps or a stretch or mealtimes. His grandparents had exchanged quiet shakes of the head across the dinner table, had waved away his impatient and incessant questions about his baby brother. When his father had come back, his face ashen, walking mechanically through the door, he had leaped up from his seat, eyes wide with anticipation and delight._

_"Where is he?" he'd asked, barely able to contain his excitement._

_He'd brushed him aside quietly, headed straight to the master bedroom. Erwin looked out at the car, certain that it was just a trick of the light or something, that surely his mother and baby brother were going to come out of it any second, that if he waited long enough they would emerge, flushed and rosy, from the back seat._

"I waited, I think, for about a half hour when my grandmother took me back inside. And, I guess at that point, I sort of figured I'd never see my mother again, and would remain forever an only child," Erwin says quietly, a conclusion to his narrative.

Levi's eyes, wet with shock and pity and his own agonies, follow the fluid, unbroken line of Erwin's arm as he arranges the flowers in the little holder beside the headstone. When Erwin straightens up again, he turns to look squarely at Levi. Under his intense scrutiny, Levi can feel the last remaining bits of his mask cracking, can feel the tears jolting up unstoppable behind his eyes, his breath catching in the beginnings of sobs. He looks down at the ground, biting the inside of his cheek and taking deep, huffing breaths through his nose, trying to do anything but that.

A hand appears into his vision, broad, palm up, held out to him, an offering of an emptiness to be filled. Levi's hand, seemingly of its own accord, reaches up, places itself in the other's hollow. Long fingers wrap gently around his own, tugging Levi into a strong embrace.

"It's okay," Erwin says, quiet, soothing. "I don't expect you to tell me anything. You can go ahead, I won't watch. I'll just be your substitute rock for the day."

Levi's fingers trace up against the coarse cloth on Erwin's back, clutching, clinging tightly, as if afraid to let go, as he hiccups soft sobs into the other's lapels.

The date is 18 November, 2014, and St. Michael's Cemetery is empty, save for the ghosts and the three. The barren branches watch the two, tangled in an embrace, a grounding, while the boy looks up from the letters he has been tracing with his finger, and lifts his face to catch the first snowflake of the winter on his cheek.


	10. The Transition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Baleen Morning - Balmorhea](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_97JDs-NOE)

As one door closes, another one opens, and Levi feels the effects of this rule of nature all too clearly the following week, when the day care manager announces that the day care will be closed for the following week due to personal reasons. This is the close. Walking Eren home through the deep golden dusky light of early evening, Levi watches the boy's shadow stretch long across the cracks in the sidewalk, painting the panels of cement with black. His shadow, long-legged and slim, seems to stretch for miles, and he wonders what it's like, being spread so thin that if you just reach, you can maybe touch your new beginning.

The opening comes when his manager at the Four Seasons tells him that as long as Eren is unobtrusive and doesn't bother anybody, there isn't any reason why Levi can't bring him to work. The manager was once Levi's age, was one faced with circumstances spiraling wildly out of control and is all too well aware of how mercy and small favours can tip the balance back into the black.

Eren looks up at him with confusion evident on his small face when Levi's steps begin to point in the direction of work instead of the day care early on Monday morning.

"We can't go to day care today," Levi explains, grasping Eren's tiny mitted hand in his own. "Miss Zoe has some things at home to take care of." At this explanation, Eren looks even more confused, as if he cannot comprehend the fact that teachers and childcare aides have lives outside of the daycare center, that they do not actually live there, pillows and blankets stashed underneath desks, to be taken out and unrolled on the floor for bedding after all the students have gone home. "That's right," Levi says as he gently nudges Eren in the direction of work. "Maybe Miss Zoe has a little boy at home, just like you, and she needs to go and take care of him for a bit." Eren furrows his tiny brows at this new thought, but doesn't protest as Levi leads him toward the hotel.

Levi tells Eren to stay put in the corner while he loads the bottom of his tray with cleaning supplies, a vast array of which are new objects to curious eyes. The comforting smell of eggs Benedict seeps from under the silver dome as Levi places Erwin's breakfast on the top of the cart. With another look at Eren, mittens hanging from a worn cord around his neck, Levi beckons him over, nudges some of the cleaning supplies over to make room for his son on the bed of the cart, reveling in the tiny giggles Eren lets out as Levi pushes the cart and makes it glide smoothly across the polished hotel floors. The wax on the floor is so shiny that when Levi looks down, he can make out Eren's reflection in the marble, his smile infectious. Levi cannot help but grin in return as the doors of the lift slide closed and they rise into the sky like clouds headed for the 33rd floor.

* * *

Some of it probably stems from his childhood experiences, but Erwin seems delighted to see Eren, who, normally boisterously loud, has taken a vow of shyness, and is currently hiding behind Levi's knee, despite previous efforts to dislodge him.

"It's just Mr. Smith," Levi tells his son, who looks up at him with wide, frightened eyes. "You remember. He was there when we went to say hi to Mama." He is inordinately proud of himself for being able to say that without his voice tearing in his throat, and wonders how long his good fortune will last. "He went to say hi to his mama, too."

At this information, Eren scrapes up enough courage to peek out from behind Levi's slacks, eyeing Erwin with a fresh, undisguised curiosity. Erwin bends down from his seated position, holds out his hand - and how much history can repeat itself, Levi thinks to himself, recalling the warmth of Erwin's fingers as they wrapped themselves tightly around his wrist and pulled him in close - and Eren glances at it unsurely, craning his head back on his shoulders to look at Levi. When Levi smiles encouragingly, Eren reaches out and places his hand into Erwin's palm, a tiny starfish on a larger backdrop of flesh.

Levi leaves the two of them to their own devices as he proceeds to go about cleaning the suite, constantly tossing reassuring statements back over his shoulder to Eren, whose gaze he can feel even across the rooms, cautious and unsure.

While he is cleaning the bathroom, he takes a look in the mirror to see their reflections from the living room. Eren has already apparently charmed Erwin into parting with his toast, and is currently gnawing on a corner of a triangle of golden bread, crumbs scattering spotting his cheeks and chin. Erwin has his elbow on the table, his hand resting under his head as he looks at Eren with a gaze of such undisguised tenderness and affection that for a split second Levi is transported to another reality, a reality where he has a happily ever after. Obviously, this happily ever after does not include a Manhattan bedroom suite that goes for $4,000 a night, and obviously may not include Erwin, but he concentrates very hard on Erwin's and Eren's combined reflections in the mirror and commits the tableau to memory to dream about at night.

"I see he's bullied you out of your breakfast," Levi says after he is finished stacking away the cleaning items on the lower half of the cart. Eren, who is now vigorously attacking a piece of ham, looks up at Levi with guilty eyes, a piece of meat still hanging from his mouth. Erwin looks up with a smile, and Levi finds the intensity in his gaze is gone, tempered down with affection, and a thought springs unbidden to his mind -

_you have been consumed, I was supposed to be the one to make you look like that_

\- before he banishes it away with a blink. It is ridiculously, absolutely absurd, and Levi refuses to be jealous of his own son, refuses to be selfish, because that is not what a father does, and he is a father, undoubtedly, whether he likes it or not.

"Your son" - and there it is, an unquestionable affirmation, as if Erwin had known the whole time what was on his mind - "could get away with murder."

Levi cannot help but smile. "Only if you were the detective investigating it," he says, a light jest.

"Well, you know what they say," Erwin says, turning back to Eren, who is now clapping his hands with delight as he prods the egg yolk roughly with the tines of the fork, making it spill yellow across the plate. "Like father, like son, right?" And, because his back is turned to him, Erwin does not catch the pale flush spilling across the planes of Levi's cheeks at the implications of his statement.

"I can watch him for today while you go and finish up whatever you need to do," Erwin says, unaware of the mental calamity he's caused, how he has set Levi to imagine waking up to the soft blue gaze he'd given Eren, to broad palms pressed warm against his own. "Be warned, though, I'll probably spoil him rotten."

And, even though Levi is assigned to help clean one of the Presidential Suites today with a few other coworkers, he finds that his thumb doesn't hesitate over the number in the elevator, that he can watch it light up bright orange without having to look away. He remembers her, of course. He remembers Petra and her dream of one day staying on the 51st floor, as high as an angel. How could he not? But as he rises up smoothly through the building, breaking through the low-hanging fog somewhere around the 45th story and emerging out into brilliant golden light, he finds himself thinking that perhaps a happily ever after is not so unattainable after all.

* * *

When he comes back to room 3307 in the afternoon, the fog has long dispersed, allowing golden sunlight to spill into the room. He knocks, once, twice, three times and when there is no response, his heart leaps into his throat and fear has him tugging at the doorknob ineffectually before remembering his house keeping key card, still hanging on a lanyard around his neck.

He swipes the card quickly, bursting into the room, eyes darting around wildly for any trace of his son. There is nothing in the living room, and Levi wants to scream, his heartbeat pulsing violent in his ears, because he has trusted and he has allowed himself to be weak, allowed himself to spill tears across the shoulder of a coat like water through silk, has allowed himself to be free with his imaginings and his hopes, and how can it be that here they are being dashed against the rocks of reality yet again?

The bathroom is also empty, the bathtub still perfectly polished and neat from when Levi had come in to clean it that morning, and Levi can see his reflection in the mirror, agonized and scared, and that is definitely not the reality he wants to be in but it is the only one he has at the present moment. His mouth tastes like copper, the stale flavour of panic and terror, and he wonders if it is divine punishment sent from her, because he had been foolish enough to consider the idea of loving another.

He squeezes his eyes shut against this thought. Petra had been a lovely, kind and generous woman when she was alive, had always encouraged him to be himself and had given him happiness beyond measure.

_"What is it like, being bisexual?" she'd wanted to know, rolling over on her side on their lumpy mattress and looking at him with curiosity. Eren had fallen asleep while nursing, and her breast was exposed, still shiny and wet, his tiny mouth open only a few inches away, as though he had slipped into dreams, soothed by her taste. "Is it confusing?"_

_"A bit, yeah," he'd admitted for the first time, his eyes riveted on the soft, gleaming skin afforded to him. "It just has to be the right person and circumstances, I guess."_

_"Is that us, then?" she'd asked, and even though she in that instance had meant her and Eren, remembering back to this moment, he thought that, just perhaps, she had meant the three of them._

But this is not the right situation, these are not the right circumstances to be thinking about her, about them, and he sits down on the edge of the tub, trying to calm himself and think rationally, trying to remember every little detail about Eren that he can, like the curve of his smile, his dimples, the soft, comforting childishness of his laughter.

When he finds that he can stand again, he carefully maneuvers himself upright, walks out into the living room where he notices a few details he had neglected previously. There are dirty plates on the dining table, from lunch, perhaps, with crumbs and a few leaves of lettuce still on them. Eren's winter coat is puddled on one of the dining room chairs, puffy and shapeless without a body to fill it. As he looks across the room, he finds that the bedroom door is closed somewhat, and this time he feels another sort of fear, one that sickens and disgusts him as he recalls the way Erwin had looked at his son this morning. Perhaps there had been something in that affectionate gaze that was not quite appropriate, perhaps the story he had told Levi at the cemetery had been exactly that, perhaps Erwin Smith was a liar, a thief, because Levi could not possibly imagine the implications of a somewhat closed bedroom door, a left behind jacket, could possibly entail.

He feels like he wants to throw up, but forces the urge down.

He marches firmly across the suite, flinging open the bedroom door, fists balled and accusations lined up ready for delivery on the tip of his tongue. He takes a deep breath, ready for confrontation, and then looks at the bed, where the two of them are lying down.

His hands drop to his sides, his breath leaves him in a whoosh.

Erwin is lying down, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling with his deep, even, sleeping breaths. Eren is lying, pillowed on Erwin's chest, his mouth slightly open, and from this angle, Levi can just make out the glimmer of a strand of saliva connecting his son to the white cloth of Erwin's shirt, which, much to his relief, is firmly buttoned and uncreased.

As he looks at the two of them, his heartbeat slowly calming down, Erwin stirs, opens his eyes, looking around the room for a few moments as if to orient himself before his gaze lands on Levi, a meeting of blue sky and grey clouds. He smiles, gestures helplessly towards Eren, who is still sleeping quite soundly, pats the bed beside him as if to indicate Levi should lie down, also.

A force that Levi himself doesn't understand propels him toward the bed, and he toes off his shoes before clambering onto the mattress and letting himself lie down next to the two of them. Erwin turns his head to meet Levi's gaze.

"He got tired after lunch," he explains, in a soft voice, barely a murmur, and Eren doesn't so much as snuffle. "And I guess I took a bit of a nap, also." He smiles, the hint of a dimple appearing at his cheek. "I guess he crawled on top of me in his sleep or something."

"Yeah," Levi murmurs, in the same quiet tone. "He moves around while he sleeps, a lot. I hope he wasn't too much of a bother?"

"Not at all," Erwin says softly. His face is open, innocent, and Levi finds the last traces of suspicion being wiped away to be replaced with guilt, with shame that he just a few moments ago had been ready to accuse and blame. He finds it hard to meet Erwin's gaze, and lowers his eyes to stare at the fine dusting of golden hair on Erwin's forearm, the cuff of the white sleeve folded precisely up around his elbow.

He wonders what sort of picture they make to her, if she is watching. He wonders if they look like magnets, curving towards each other, separate for the moment but being drawn inexplicably together, bound by invisible forces that he cannot explain except that they just are.

He wonders if, this time, the person and the circumstances are right.

* * *

"What did you have for lunch?" Levi wants to know on their walk home. Erwin had asked Levi if they wouldn't like to stay for dinner, but Levi already feels the balance of their relationship swinging crazily into the red, and does not want to take on any more debt, emotional or otherwise, than he has to. He had refused, staring at the toes of his shoes, unable to meet Erwin's eyes.

"Pea!" Eren proclaims, skipping along beside him.

"You ate peas?" Levi asks, surprised. "The little green circles? You ate those?"

"Yeah! Pea!" Eren says, giggling, and for the second time, Levi is shocked by the shot of jealousy that pierces through him. He has never been able to get Eren to eat peas, has spent more than a few nights picking up the little round vegetables from their scattered positions on the tile floor of the kitchen where Eren had dropped them off his spoon or bowl in displeasure. And because Levi has always been the record keeper, the one who can recall the date of Eren's firsts - first tooth, first word, first smile - to have this pass him by seems unacceptable.

He finds himself falling back into that spiral of confusion again, not unknown but terrifying all the same, as he gently scrubs Eren with the washcloth in the bath. Biting his lip cautiously, he tenderly rubs his son all over, asking him if he hurts anywhere, and is utterly relieved when the washcloth comes back from between Eren's legs without a trace of blood or pain. Eren sticks his tongue out at Levi's concern, certainly a new form of self-expression he's learned at day care, Levi thinks.

"Did you and Mr. Smith have Popsicles or Jell-O or anything red like that?" Levi asks, noting the strawberry stain coloring his son's tongue a reddish color.

"Noooo," Eren says, but Levi can tell that his attention is elsewhere.

Later that night, as the headlights of the cars paint soft across the peeling wallpaper, Levi stares up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the way Eren's head digs into his sternum as the child sleeps, thinking about how easy it is to love and to hate and to feel torn between the two. Without disturbing Eren, Levi holds his arm straight up from the mattress, his hand reaching toward the ceiling, wanting to imagine that she is there, reaching back out for him.

"Help me, I'm lost," he whispers softly into the still air. "Help me, P."

_There had been a point in their relationship where they'd called each other by their first initials, terms of endearment, two people so close that just a letter was enough to enclose love._

_"Remember, L, you can always come to me if you need help, if you've lost your way and need a light to make it through," she'd whispered, her gaze serious and devoted, the greatest thing anyone had ever said to him. "I promise I'll be there."_

_Where are you, now?_ he wonders to himself, his fingers still searching for salvation.

He lets his hand come back to his side, and falls asleep with the letter on his lips, not realizing as he slips into his dreams that, after the initial pop of the consonant, how easy the transition is from "P" to "E."


	11. The Surrender

He had hoped the summer would last forever. They had finally seemed to have hit their stride, after a few interminable years of marriage and meddling in-laws who kept asking them when they might be able to have a fat grandson or granddaughter to hold in their arms, to take riding on the weekends, to introduce to their multimillionaire colleagues and acquaintances who of course already had grandchildren of their own. She had been pregnant, and he had been full along with her, his heart swelling like the small dome of her abdomen underneath tailored designer shirts that she jokingly complained she would have to give away to the Salvation Army or something because the Lord knew she would never be able to wear them again. Not after the baby.

They had finally been happy, had finally found out what the meaning of marriage was. He had woken up those sunny summer mornings with a smile on his face, actually glad to have her wrapped close and secure in his arms, the palms of his hands pressed against a life that he had helped to contribute towards.

For a few moments in that eternal summer, Erwin Smith thought that, perhaps, everything would be okay.

* * *

 

But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry, and after her stint in the hospital, being scraped clean, he had found it harder and harder to face her, to look her in the eye and see what could have been reflected back at him.

Miscarriage. It was such an ugly word. "Mis," a prefix taken from ancient Anglophilic languages that still asserted their dominance throughout years of change and flux, meaning "ill," meaning "mistaken," meaning "wrong."

The word got stuck in his throat every time he tried to talk about it. The doctors had assured them that it wasn't an uncommon event, that of course she would be able to have children again in the future, that sometimes it was even for the better, as a miscarriage might have been a signal that something had been wrong with the fetus, that even if it had been carried out to full-term, it might have had irreparable defects that in the long run were just overall better not to deal with.

Don't you understand? he'd wanted to shout. That was the next chapter of my life, the new beginning of our lives, and it is gone completely and forever, scraped away by curettes and dispassion trying to assure us that this is normal when it is not. Mis, it is wrong, it is ill, it implies that we made a mistake, that we were and still are mistaken. Surrounded by the charts of embryo, fetus, baby development on the walls of the obstetrician's office, Erwin had felt like throwing up, or breaking something, throwing one of the doctor's well-meaning potted plants out of the window. She had not been present, already distancing herself from the whole event and him, as though none of it had ever happened.

He had wanted, needed answers, an assurance that he had had no role in the spontaneity of the whole thing, words that were supposed to convey comfort and only instilled the opposite. He felt helpless under the doctor's scrutiny, his hands clenching in his lap, he felt responsible and lost and hopeless. And, obviously, certainly, he was not the only father - would-be father - to have sat in these same grey armchairs across the dark mahogany desk in this very office, surrounded by charts of what a child might look like in development, surrounded by the very images of what he had lost.

Surely he was not the first, and he would not be the last.

And surely it must have been harder for her, because their baby had been growing inside her, because she had been the one to feel taut flesh burgeoning and growing firm without her permission. But, now that it was gone, she was left empty and unfulfilled and surely this distancing, this apathy and aloofness, was her way of dealing with it. It was not something Erwin had particularly liked; he'd found it terrifying and almost morbid, this lack of emotion.

He had been so certain it would be a girl. He'd already started picking out girls' names, had even set up a crib of white wood in a spare room where the breeze and sunlight might flow in from the window, had painted the walls a soft pastel green and had pasted murals of cheerful animals below the crown moldings, while she watched from the doorway, a little smile on her face as she suggested different decorations they might put up for the baby.

They had been so full of promise, then.

After the miscarriage, after he had taken her home to an empty, barren apartment, she had said, in a voice that brooked no argument, "We will leave the nursery as it is. We must try again."

Some people say that it only takes one word for you to realise the end is nigh, that you're at the beginning of the end. Erwin had scoffed at this, because he'd been so sure, so headstrong and confident that he would be able to notice the cliff's edge long before he got there.

But in the end, he hadn't, and surely he was not the first one, nor would he be the last one.

Must. We must try again. A reminder that they were bound by threads of obligation, the son and daughter of two pairs of socialites merging together like a corporate union to engender ties of benefits and connections and advantages. He was obligated to love her, to marry her, to have a child with her and send that child to a private boarding school in the United Kingdom and set that child up for marriage with the child of another well-off couple.

"Yes," he'd agreed, not knowing what else to say. "We must."

Thinking back on it now, a little over a year from the fact, he can't help but think of how much the word 'must' sounds like the prefix 'mis.' Can't help but think about the little girl he never had.

_I must have her. I miss her. She is mis-sing._

Eren has left a mitten behind from that afternoon, and Levi had been in a hurry to get out of the suite, as though he could taste Erwin's longing, thick and bitter and stale in the opulence of the rooms, an underlying current of unsatisfaction. Erwin holds the tiny mitten in the palm of his hand, squeezing it lightly and noting its squishy texture between his fingers, wondering if the daughter would have worn mittens in this shade of blue in the wintertime.

And yes, of course he thinks about her constantly, but looking at this tiny mitten in the cup of his hand, he cannot help but think about Eren and Levi. Alone, but together.

He looks at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, hair still slightly disheveled from his afternoon nap, a thoroughly unfamiliar sensation with the weight of a child heavy against his chest. If he examines himself closely enough, he can see the small spot, just underneath his heart, where Eren had drooled in his sleep, a soft stain of childish wetness. He can still feel him here, against his heartbeat, warm and flushed with sleep, and a thoroughly different feeling altogether sweeps through him as he thinks about Levi in the cemetery, leaving streaks of wet on the lapels of his coat and clinging to him as if to ground himself in this world.

If he closes his eyes, he can imagine Levi leaning against the doorway, Eren balanced on his hip, a grin on his face, instructing him where to hang the mobile for the baby.

It is not a must.

His daughter is still floating somewhere in the ether of his dreams - missed and missing - but he thinks she might understand if he were to tell her that he has to stay, hold Levi in his arms a little bit longer, that she might understand if he were to tell her that he would do the best by Eren that he could, sort of a trial run until he gets to meet her.

It is not a must, but he wants so badly to be alone, together, that he thinks it ought to be one.

* * *

The next morning, Levi comes in to clean the suite at precisely 9:47 A.M., but this time, there is no trace of Eren. Erwin hands the tiny mitten over, and Levi glances at it for a moment before tucking it away into a pocket of his slacks without looking at him, as though ashamed.

"He's at a neighbour's," Levi says quietly, still not meeting Erwin's gaze. "He's running a bit of a fever and I wouldn't want to burden you with that."

No, Erwin wants to protest, burden me with it, tell me everything that's wrong. Sit down and show me the lifelines of your hands, because I want, I need to know you, read you cover to cover, searching for the words that will kickstart the new era of my life. I need to know if the next chapter features you as a main character. I need to know if you'll ever let me curve into you like the breath at the end of a long sentence, I need to know if you will ever curve against me in your sleep like a perfect comma, easing away our worries and imperfections with every breath.

He doesn't even realize he's staring until Levi looks back at him, a flash of bright hot anger in his eyes. It is refreshing, a sharp spot of acidic emotion to bring him away from the stale taste of longing.

"What do you want from me?" Levi asks, his voice desperate, barely more than a whisper of anger, sweeping through him and cutting him clean and open. "I have nothing to give you. Nothing."

_I want you. It is on the tip of his tongue. I want you, I need you, please let me surrender myself to you in all the ways I know how._

_You have caught me, and I have been found. You make me feel like I am not missing, like I am not mistaken._

But before he can give voice to the confusing wreck of thoughts tumbling around inside his head, Levi turns quickly on his heel and walks quickly out of the room, the mahogany wood of the door sweeping closed behind him without even so much as a breath.

It is an unfamiliar sensation to Erwin. He is the one who leaves, not the other way around, and he stares at the door in shock, surprised, as though expecting Levi to come back through it again, as though expecting an instant replay to come out with a better ending. When it becomes apparent that Levi is not coming back, Erwin walks over to the door, slumps down against it, presses his palm close to the wood.

"Wait," he says softly, though there is no one there to hear, and though he has no motivation to chase after the other. "Wait for me, Levi, please."

* * *

Levi leans against the other side of the door, his knees curled up to his chest, staring up at the rococo ceiling of the hallway overhead. His head rests against the door, tilted back, as he tries to compose himself.

Erwin's gaze had been on him, piercing through him, unwrapping the layers of his soul, and it had been unnerving, to say the least. The look in the man's eyes had been achingly wistful, strangely hungry, starved, and there is too much at stake for Levi and for the child she has left in his care that their little aloneness of two cannot possibly sustain a third.

He knows he should go back inside, should apologize profusely, because Erwin Smith has been nothing but kind, to both of them. But there is a gorge rising in his throat, and he takes long, slow, deep breaths, trying to calm himself.

It is undoubtedly a small thing, but Erwin Smith has taken one of his son's firsts from him, has stolen it out from under his nose without even thinking about it. I am the father, he wants to shout at the closed door. I am, not you, you will never be the father.

 _And yet,_ he thinks to himself as his fingers close around the mitten stuffed into his pocket, _I am not the father, either. I know, I know, I know, but he doesn't. He is wrong and mistaken, and so am I._

 _You love him._ The thought comes to him in a sharp burst, and he closes his eyes against the agony of it. He has taken the shell of you and brought you back to life again. He has given you back the power to think of tomorrow.

He turns himself, letting his cheek rest against the cool wood of the door, presses his palm up against it as though Erwin can feel him pressed against the mahogany.

"Okay, alright," he says softly, to assure himself and whatever ghosts may be listening, that he is just taking a few moments to compose himself and regain control of the situation. "I am waiting."

_I am waiting for you to help me write the next chapter of my life._


	12. The Song of His Soul

"I love you." Those had been the first words he'd ever heard her say, though obviously they hadn't been directed toward him. They had been meant for the young man walking beside her, his arms laden down with her textbooks, a shared scarf wrapped around their necks, heads bent close together.

He can't remember much about him, anymore, not much, because he had been an insignificant blip on the roadmap of his life. He will think about him, occasionally, because he cannot help but think, cannot help but know, that that other man had known Petra in the most intimate of ways, had known her enough to plant a life inside her. At least, he hopes it was that other man, because when she was alive, they had never talked about it and he cannot imagine, will not let himself imagine, even now when she is gone, that that life may have been put there by force.

Levi had never asked. Petra had never offered. And so the LP of their time together had gone, a soft melody punctuated with the rhythm of Eren's breath counting out the measures. It had played out for just a little under two years before she sent the needle skipping, screeching wildly across the vinyl to a breathless stop.

She had looked lovely the night before she died, as odd of a thing to say as that was. She had looked lovely, radiant, positively brilliant, revelling in the fact that she, of all people, could cause such destruction.

"I love you." Those had been the last words he'd ever hear her say, and this time he'd felt the full impact of each syllable, the heap of responsibility she'd piled on him with her last breaths.

It was the 18th of November, 2013, a crisp, slightly overcast winter morning, and he'd held her lifeless body pressed tight against his own, holding his breath tight in his chest to keep himself from breaking out into sobs, thinking that maybe if he saved up his inhales, there would be enough oxygen in his lungs for the both of them. She would come back, stir in the circle of his embrace, would turn over and open her honey-colored eyes and ask him why he looked so sad.

He had believed she would, and had continued to hope against the odds until Eren had woken up wailing, sobbing pitifully to indicate he was hungry, he was cold, he needed to be changed, to remind Levi of the responsibilities he had been saddled with.

The world spins on.

* * *

There had been moments during the past year when Levi had thought with a sickening sense of disgust that he might have hated his son.

Thanksgiving, the first in a long time without her to make light of the poor table settings and the scrawny turkey, always seemingly simultaneously over- and undercooked, a day where he found himself crying into the sink after Eren had been put down for a nap because he could not possibly imagine how he could ever be thankful again, for anything.

Christmas and the New Year, a series of holidays where even the vicious whirlwinds of snow couldn't block out the sounds of revelers coming and going from the bars, shouting in drunken merriment about their good fortune and well wishes for 2014. There had been no tree, no special dinner, no presents, even though it was Eren's first Christmas and by all rites and traditions should have been made extra-special. Levi had looked at Eren, instead, and had been astonished by the anger he felt squeezing itself tight underneath his ribs.

 _It is your fault_ , he'd wanted to say, even though Eren had been not quite one, incapable of understanding, and even though it was a ridiculous thought to have, because obviously the baby in the bassinet was not to blame, because there was nothing and nobody to blame. _If you had not been here, if she had not kept an eye turned towards your future, she might have lived, we might have had money for the hospital, we might have, we might have..._

Valentine's Day, the first one without her. Couples seemed to be everywhere, rose petals sprayed across the sidewalks brilliantly as if to mark a happiness that Levi seemed unable to remember.

Eren's first birthday had been particularly bad. Levi had forgotten how to breathe, and though it was a tremendous occasion, he had wanted to hit something, someone, punch a hole through the wall, run away and hide himself in another world where he could reinvent himself and remaster his destiny once again. He had been ready to do it, too, ready to throw his clothes and her blue cotton sundress in a duffel and leave Eren at the doorstep of some well-meaning neighbour who would take him in, give him a bottle, hand him over to child protective services or some other such agency.

And then Eren had rolled over, had woken up and smiled gummily at him with the beginnings of his first teeth, and Levi found himself falling in love all over again with the traces of her that the boy's little face held.

"I guess we need each other, don't we?" he'd said, the rage throbbing away like a distant tide. "Look at you, you can barely even sit up, I don't suppose I can very well leave you, now can I?" Eren had stuffed his fingers into his mouth, grinning sloppily at Levi around them, and Levi vowed, then and there, to hold on to those smiles for the rest of forever.

He could see her in them. And, though he was not his father, he could see himself in them, reflected back in dizzying hues of turquoise, and he liked that feeling. The feeling of knowing that he was the center of someone's universe once again left him breathless with the power it implied.

It gave him back his control.

* * *

Though he may be the center of Eren's universe, he is certainly not the ruler of it, a fact that Eren's body reminds him all too firmly as he gently brushes back strands of his son's sweat-slicked hair away from his forehead. Eren is lying in bed, eyes closed, face flushed with fever, and he tries not to think about her, not to browse through the mental lists of symptoms he's stored away for the very worst, tries to keep himself from making this a bigger deal than it is, tries to keep away the phone number for the funeral home from dancing around behind his eyes.

He's already given the boy some children's Tylenol, chewy purple pills that he had chomped down happily before drifting off promptly to sleep without so much as letting Levi bathe him or brush his teeth or change him into pajamas. Levi couldn't help but smile affectionately at the warm, sweating lump in the middle of his mattress, but even as he gently coaxed sleeping limbs out of a tiny long-sleeved shirt, he also couldn't help but notice that the rash had spread from Eren's back to splay long, faint red fingers over his chest, staking a claim to his son's flesh. Frowning, Levi applies more Aveeno to the irritated skin, closing the tube with a sharp pop.

None of the symptoms check out, none really match up with hers, and for that Levi is grateful. He cannot, will not, absolutely refuses to lose Eren in the same manner.

 _No,_ he thinks to himself as he gently bundles Eren into his pajamas. _It wouldn't be nearly the same. He has nobody to live for but myself, and I vice versa._ Erwin flashes into his mind, an infinitesimal second that takes Levi's breath away with the clarity of the image, before he is shaken unceremoniously away. _We would get treatment for him, he wouldn't be able to say no because I would ignore it, I would bankrupt myself, would sell myself on every corner of every street, would cut out my organs and sell them before I would watch this vibrancy of not quite two years fade away in two weeks._

The thought of that sends him reeling, and he rushes to steady himself.

 _It is just a fever,_ he repeats over and over to himself. _It is nothing like what she had. It is normal, children get sick and get fevers, he will be better in a few days as long as I feed him chicken soup and lots of water and make sure he sleeps it off._

Eren stirs in his sleep, opening red-lined eyes to look at Levi for a few moments. "Papa." His voice holds no trace of a question, as though he takes Levi for granted.

"Yes, Papa's here," Levi says gently, smoothing back sweaty slick chocolate hair. "Go back to sleep, and you will feel better when you wake up. Promise."

Eren reaches out, presses a tiny, hot hand into Levi's, and Levi lifts it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to the flushed palm and curling small fingers around it for the boy to carry it into his dreams. When he looks up again, Eren has already fallen asleep again, and Levi smiles quietly as he tucks himself in around the sleeping mass of his benediction.

"I love you, you know," he says softly, quietly, his voice barely a murmur as he listens to the whistles of Eren's breath.

There isn't a single shred of doubt in his mind.

* * *

A few miles and another universe away, Erwin Smith sits on the edge of the king-sized bed in Room 3307 and thinks about Levi, who seems to occupy the vast majority of his thoughts, waking and dreaming. Erwin feels like he knows enough of the story to sketch out a rough beginning, middle, and end, but the other man remains an enigma, a chalk outline waiting to be filled in with its body and the fine details accompanying it.

And then there is her story, one Levi hasn't gotten around to speaking about yet, and one that may remain closed to him forever.

He stands up, walks over to the bedroom window, and looks at the shimmering lights of skyscrapers and glass windows, a world awake and moving rapidly on to its next reality. Wonders if his next reality has a slot in it for Levi and his son.

Levi hadn't come back in after his outburst the other day, and Erwin hadn't pursued him, nor had he brought up the matter at any of the few days since. They skirted about each other, tension thick as a wire between them, not daring to meet each other's gaze. He missed it, and was, for a brief moment, a bit concerned about how quickly he was being unraveled. Seemingly overnight, Levi had wormed his way into his life, had grown roots and branches through Erwin's mind, so knotted and thick that he felt he'd go insane if he tried to rip them out.

But, with the way Levi had looked at his son, Erwin knew that, undoubtedly, he would never come first, that he would never be the top priority in Levi's life, given the opportunity to be in it. For a brief moment, he was consumed with jealousy that faded away as quickly as it had come as he remembered the soft, warm weight of Eren's cheek against his chest.

 _You love him._ The thought came sharply, unbidden. _You want him and you need him and you love him more than you have ever loved anyone like this, because he has shown you fatherhood, what your life might have been like. He has given you a glimpse of your other self, and you want, need more._

 _Yes,_ he admits to his blurry reflection in the glass; he can no longer make out who he is, or who he is supposed to be. _I suppose I do love him, don't I? And yet, I've no idea what his favourite colour is, no clue what he likes to eat or what he does for fun. I know nothing about him and yet I feel like I can hear the song of his soul._

_It's an odd thing._


	13. The Parents

He racks his brains desperately, tries to remember if she has ever had a fever, if she has ever been ill, except for, well, that one time. She'd always been the picture of good health, and would relentless tease him in the spring and summer - hay fever - and the fall and winter - general illnesses that left his nose red and runny and his throat sore, his voice cracking with every syllable.

And though he's strong, though he's more than able to carry Eren's weight around along with the shopping, has in fact even gotten used to the feel of him clinging to his biceps, this tiny, blessed weight in his arms, against his hip, drooling on his shoulder, heavy and limp like a sack of potatoes, his arms still ache something fierce, and he thinks he can feel a cramp coming on his left shoulder. It is a sharp twinging pain spilling through his left arm, and he vaguely wonders for a moment if it is the beginnings of a heart attack, if it is even possible for someone like him to have a heart attack.

 _Perhaps it will be easier,_ he thinks to himself, if the heart under siege has already been broken, shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and glued back together somewhat carelessly. _Perhaps Fate is being kind, whisking me away so I will not have to deal with the pain and horror of losing someone I care about yet again._

Eren that very morning had woken up, still feverish, his chocolate hair sweaty and matted to his forehead, but he had looked at Levi and opened his mouth, making little chomping motions as if he wanted to eat. Grateful for this turn in events, Levi had obliged, mixing up a bowl of maple and brown sugar oatmeal for Eren and even using more milk than normal, feeling it befitting for the occasion, even allowing him to eat it in bed, propped up against the headboard with the pillow. Much to Levi's delight, Eren had managed to eat the entire bowl, a feat that he hadn't been able to accomplish the past few days. Levi had ruffled his son's hair, giving him a kiss on the forehead because of how proud he was, and he'd told Eren to rest a bit while he went and washed the dishes.

Much to Levi's horror, just as soon as he turned on the tap in the faucet, just as soon as the icy sputtering spray from the faucet had just layered its first thin sheen over his fingers, he heard a few little squeaks, Eren whimpering in distress. The bowl had clanked on the metal bottom of the sink as he headed back to the bedroom, hands still dripping wet against the thighs of his pants. He popped his head around the doorjamb to ask what the matter was, and precisely at that moment Eren looked up at him, his tiny hands splayed out across his stomach, eyes teary as he gasped, once, twice, before he leaned forward, his body producing sounds that Levi had never known he was capable of, coating his lap and legs and the sheets beneath with chunky bits of the morning's oatmeal.

"Ow, Papa," he'd sobbed after the first bout had seemed to cease, his shoulders still trembling with the exertions. Levi had hardly been able to unclench his fingers from the doorjamb.

 _No, this can't be,_ he'd thought to himself even as he wrenched himself away from the door, even as he scooped Eren into his arms, assuring him that it was no problem at all, that it was just a little accident. _No, this can't be,_ he breathed to himself even as Eren rubbed teary eyes against his shoulder and smeared vomit across his shirt. He had hardly dared to look at his son, had held his breath because he didn't want to think about what it would be like if this was the beginning of the end.

He holds his son on his lap now in the hospital, Mt. Sinai, a place that, no matter how clean and sterilized, will always smell of death and the saline scent of tears to him. Dr. Pierce is saying things, telling him that they need to run some tests, and the words run in one ear and out the other, meaningless syllables that all seem to Levi to say the same thing, that he will lose Eren as surely as he has lost everything else. 'Scarlet fever,' he thinks it might be, and he thinks about Victorian era novels he may have read in the past, or she may have read, leaving the spines cracked on the arms of the couch, where the boys and girls died of scarlet fever, bundled up in bed and sick and aching for the touch of day.

He asks Levi to wait, asks Eren to open his mouth wide and say 'Aah.' Eren complies, ungluing his face from Levi's shoulder just long enough to open his mouth for the doctor. Dr. Pierce swabs the back of his throat with a long, cotton swab, inducing another round of gagging that sends Levi's insides churning, even though nothing is brought up this time. Dr. Pierce smiles at him, trying to look reassuring, undoubtedly, but Levi can't help but think about the cramp forming in his left shoulder and the flushed, sticky heat of Eren's cheek against his chest.

He clings to the diagnosis like a salvation. Scarlet fever sounds nothing like acute myeloid leukemia, and for that he is grateful.

Dr. Pierce comes back a few hours later, looking apologetic, another man unfamiliar to Levi trailing him, clad in a white lab coat and in the process of snapping white latex gloves over his hands. "We will need to run some tests," Dr. Pierce explains, and there are those dreaded words again, tests, tests, tests, and Levi feels horror building up, palpitating frantically in his rib cage, and he hugs Eren tight to him and wants to tell the doctor that _they aren't ready, they haven't studied for this exam, please let me have a few more moments with the son that I know before you give me the information about the son he will become._

He says none of this. Nods numbly, allows the doctor to roll up the sleeve of Eren's coat, holds his son close and steady to him as Dr. Pierce ties a bright blue band just above the curve of Eren's chubby elbow. He presses kisses into the whorl of hair on the top of Eren's head, whispers to him what a brave boy he is, how proud he is of him, even though he doubts Eren can hear him above his own screams at the first prick of the needle.

Levi is tired, he is supposed to be at work, and he is smeared with sickness and filth, stuck in a scenario that is only unfortunately too familiar to him, so it is no wonder that, despite his best intentions, he begins to weep at the first spurt of crimson that jettisons into the curve of the test tube.

* * *

Levi is not in at work today, and the other maid that comes in to clean Erwin's room looks rather disgruntled about it, apologizing brusquely for being late and banging his breakfast down on the table with considerably less finesse than Levi, even at his most irritated, might have used.

When Erwin ventures to ask where Levi is, she all but snaps at him. "God knows where he is. Probably sleeping off a hangover that young people like himself get, cavorting about on weekends without a care for their responsibilities." Erwin highly doubts this is true, but he can see that he will not get anything more out of this woman, her hair shot with grey, her face wrinkled with worry and laugh lines alike. Instead, he thanks the woman politely, and as she moves away to clean the bathroom, he can hear her muttering under her breath.

As he sits down to a rapidly cooling breakfast of Belgian waffles, he wonders when the last time Levi had a drink was. He doesn't seem to be the type of man to find salvation in the bottom of a bottle, doesn't seem the type to savour the last drops of whiskey bitter and smooth on his tongue. He seems to be the epitome of responsibility, and at that thought, the food goes cold in Erwin's mouth as he thinks about what might be so important to drag Levi away from his commitments.

There is really only one answer, and he can't bear to think about it.

The food churns in his stomach as he thinks about what might have happened to the cheerful boy who spent the day with him, chasing peas around his plate and giggling in delight whenever he managed to spear one delicately with the tines of his fork. The possibilities are endless.

_Hit by a car. Slipping from a swing or the innocuous branch of a tree. Kidnapped. Raped._

The last thought sets his mouth dry, tasting the staleness of copper at the back of his throat. It cannot be, he thinks to himself. It will not be. But he knows all too well that these things do happen, that there are people out there like that in the world, that it is a very real possibility.

Erwin is not religious, and in fact has never been, but he clasps his hands together, closes his eyes, and prays sincerely from the bottom of his heart to whatever deities or higher powers are listening that this is not the case.

He heads to the bedroom, tugs on an outfit from the closet without looking too closely at it, and leaves a crisp $20 bill by his unfinished breakfast as he toes on his shoes and heads out the door.

* * *

It had been just after lunchtime when Dr. Pierce had told Levi that it was not scarlet fever. The words rise up in his throat, unbidden.

"Is it...like what his mother had?" He cannot bring himself to say it.

Dr. Pierce's eyes are kind. "No," he says softly but decisively, and that sets Levi's heart beating quieter. "It is not."

"What is it, then?" Levi asks. Eren's cheek is pressed against his chest, tiny hands up against his back, clinging.

"I can't say for sure." This feels almost worse. "I'd like to have him in for observation, some more tests. I apologise for the inconvenience."

At that moment, Levi cannot think beyond the present moment. "Yes, yes," he agrees, "more tests, that will be fine." All he can think about is the warm, sticky weight of Eren flush against his chest as he stands up and follows the doctor to a room, his footsteps seeming to echo through the hallway.

* * *

It hits him about three hours later, when the sun is setting outside and painting Eren's cheek with soft rosy light. It is about the money. It always has been, it seems, and he feels sick all over again thinking about the numbers that are slipping through his fingers even now, at this very moment, as Eren is sleeping peacefully in the hospital cot, looking dwarfed by the sterile white sheets and the blue cotton blanket made for bigger people.

His savings account is all but negative, and he feels this little journey into the world of medicine will leave him all but homeless, may even render him that. He has not thought about setting up a college account for Eren, has not thought about a future beyond the vaguest terms. The idea of a five-year plan is laughable. The extent of his is that there is five years to think about that, and another five after that, but looking at Eren surrounded by the cool walls of the hospital, Levi hopes to himself that there really will be another five.

The thought comes to him, unprompted.

_This is happening because you allowed yourself to think there might be something better. This is happening because you love Erwin, because you have allowed your attentions to slip. This is happening because you are not a good father, because in fact, you are not a father at all. You are a charlatan, and maybe it is even better this way, because a child should not have to grow up knowing that he has to scrape every penny he can off the sidewalk, should not have to worry about outgrowing his clothes, should not have to know what it is to have his stomach growl and clench in hunger three nights in a row._

The clock on the wall of the room ticks time past, and Levi finally manages to drift off into a restless sleep, slumping down in his chair, lulled into slumber by the soft, rhythmic beeping of the machines that stand sentry over his sleeping son.

* * *

It is 9:47 PM, according to the clock on the wall, when Levi wakes up, his eyes aching and bleary with sleep. There is a kink in the center of his back, and his breath tastes stale behind his teeth. Eren is still sleeping, or maybe he has woken up and gone back to sleep, the machines still ticking soothing and steady. There is an insistent pressure in his bladder, demanding relief, and, not wanting to wake his son with the light and sound from the attached bathroom, Levi ventures out of the room - just for a moment, Eren cannot possibly miss me, he rationalizes to himself - into the hallway, in the hopes of finding a nurse's station and asking where he might be able to use the washroom and perhaps have a shower.

Much to his surprise, he finds him there, a pool of calm stillness at the end of the hallway, his hands clasped on his knees, blue gaze meeting his own. He forgets in that moment about using the bathroom, forgets about the way his hair feels lying flat against his scalp, forgets that just a few feet away his son is sleeping and dreaming hopefully of better days. 

"What are you doing here?" His voice is barely more than a whisper as he walks toward him slowly, his steps lagging as if in a dream.

Erwin pats the seat next to him, not saying anything. In a daze, Levi sits down beside him.

"How is he?" are the first words Erwin says to him, and Levi wonders how he knows, how he knew. The same nagging suspicion returns a smidgen, a suspicious slice of him asking why Erwin is curious about his son's welfare, what stake he might have in it. He smells like pressed linen and a soft, musky cologne, and Levi turns slightly toward him against his own volition to inhale deeper. He finds Erwin looking at him, sharp and intense and worried, a gaze that sets his suspicions reeling back to the darker corners of his mind, wiped away in the bright fluorescence of the hospital lights and the intense azure of Erwin's eyes.

"I don't know," he says, finally, after a long moment, and is horrified to find his voice cracking, his eyes flooding with tears. He scrubs frantically at his eyes with the back of one hand, like a child. "They said they don't know."

A warmth wraps around his other hand, fingers slipping in between his own and holding tight, secure, comforting. Through a haze of tears, he finds the vague outline of Erwin's body, head tilted towards his own, the intensity made softer through a saline sheen, made kinder.

"I'm sure he will be fine," Erwin says, softly, quietly, and Levi cannot help but think about what sort of picture they must be presenting.

A tableau of two lovers, perhaps, concerned about an adopted child? Maybe two old friends who had gotten intimate before in the past, and now held each other at arm's length, but still willing to provide comfort through a clasping of hands that could mean anything, really.

The world outside is dark, colored the deep blue of the night, and Levi can see their reflections in the thick glass of the window.

 _No_ , he revises, studying his face and the curve of Erwin's back in the glass. _Not lovers, not friends._

It looks like a portrait of parents, worrying about their son.


	14. The Grown Ups

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Stay With Me - Sam Smith](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rC8RRXcfeo).

He and Jamison Pierce are cut from the same cloth, well distinguished backgrounds embroidered with the tapestries of their Ivy League ancestors and the tassels of wealth embellishing the edges. There had never been a question in their minds, even from an early age, about what would happen if there was no money, if there was no time. Their futures were layers of 'whens' and 'eventuallys,' not 'ifs' or 'maybes.' The web of connections that their fathers and their fathers before them had spun would always prop them upright, one way or another, funneling them one way or the other into fortune.

They'd met each other at the University of Chicago, where Erwin had been an economics major and Jamison had been studying biology, with a specialty in immunology. Jamison had been engrossed in some anatomy textbook on a cold March day, where the snow was still drifting down outside in thick, fat clumps that clung to your eyelashes, when Erwin had plopped down next to him in the library and promptly begun struggling out of his puffy winter coat.

He'd been annoyed. There were clearly other seats in the library, seats that weren't directly adjacent to other people. In fact, the library was all but deserted. It was the spring recess, if one could even begin to call this sort of weather 'spring.' And the guy sitting next to him definitely didn't look pre-med. He didn't look desperate enough.

"Some weather we're having, isn't it?" he'd asked Jamison, his voice rich in New England accents. Disgorged from his coat, his Fair Isle sweater seemed to blend into the library's decor, cable knit in warm woolen hues of beige and toffee. He smelt like coffee and pine trees, and from the shining Rolex on his wrist, Jamison gave him a label as some sort of business major. He hadn't been too far wrong.

Erwin had been different then, Jamison thought, as he looked across his glasses at the man sitting in front of him. He'd been so sure of himself, so confident, so ready with a charismatic smile and twinkle in his eye. No matter how hard Jamison tries, he cannot equate the man sitting in the grey chair in front of him to the boy he met in the University of Chicago. That boy, the one who he'd stayed up several nights with, who'd introduced him to the fascinations of alcohol and some illegal drugs, that boy seemed to have evaporated into thin air. It didn't make sense, not really; they were less than a decade out of university, and the man sitting in front of him had already become exactly that. A man, wrinkles of worry limning his face, tracing shallow rivers through clear skin that had never seen distress before.

He clears his throat, rearranges some papers on his desk. He's used to dealing with grief, has seen it etched behind the irises of too many pairs of eyes, but this, this is different. Erwin belongs to a different world, to a world where money doesn't matter and where anything could be bought. Love, a degree, a life. He himself still has trouble assimilating himself into this world he's chosen for himself.

His father had wanted him to study law, go into the family business. And, Jamison did have to admit, there were days when he wished he'd studied law instead. Days when nothing seemed to go right, when he had to face parents, hollow-eyed and ashen-faced, and tell them that there was nothing more to be done. There were nights when he found oblivion in the bottom of a bottle, nights where he stayed awake for hours and hours, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the harsh flatlining sound of the heart monitors droning on behind his ears, reminding him of his failures.

He knew he wasn't a failure, but it definitely felt that way some days. And those were days where he felt like Erwin looked right now, his hands uncharacteristically knotting around each other in a show of worry that Jamison had never been privy to during their university years.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Erwin since graduation. Had it been at his wedding? He wasn't quite sure. He vaguely remembered Erwin in a sharply cut Brooks Brothers suit, laughing over a flute of champagne, his arm curled around the waist of a lovely woman, strawberry blonde in white lace. What had her name been? For the life of him, Jamison couldn't remember, but as his eyes drifted over Erwin's hands, clenching and unclenching, he found that there was no gleam of gold or platinum present.

"We got divorced," Erwin says, breaking the silence. Clearly he hadn't lost his knack of knowing exactly what Jamison was thinking at any given time. "Things have...things have changed, Jamie."

And there was that nickname, the one he hadn't used in over seven years. Nostalgia came rushing back at him, memories of cramped dorm rooms, snow falling quietly outside, the acerbic, sweet taste of drugs on his tongue, lying back against the carpet and looking up at the ceiling and discussing with Erwin the secrets of the universe and what his biochemistry TA's tattoo might be of.

"Yes," Jamison agrees. "I guess the inertia caught up with us."

"What's wrong with him?" Erwin asks abruptly, and for a moment the old Erwin is back, the same intense, piercing blue gaze. But this Erwin is a man now, grown up, no more Fair Isle sweaters and hastily wrapped joints in the commons, and there is a little boy and his father down the hallway, suspended, inert.

"I don't know," Jamison says quietly, spreading his hands in supplication. "We're running tests."

Erwin looks out the window, the gray light of late morning catching his profile in sharp relief, washing over his cheekbones and the column of his throat. The boy and the man are one and the same.

"And...what's wrong with him?" Erwin asks, and this time Jamison knows he is not talking about Eren.

"His heart broke," he says, and he can see the edges of the boy whittling away, can see the corners of a secret coming into view, one that Erwin doesn't have to say aloud. His silence speaks volumes and explains everything in one fell swoop. The concern. The divorce. The hands curling and uncurling into fists. Powerless. Levi has unmade him.

A long stretch of silence spools out between them.

"We've grown up, haven't we, Jamie?" Erwin asks, a crack in his voice that Jamison isn't sure that even Erwin is aware of.

Jamison, Jamie, Pierce sighs, pinches the bridge of his nose, his fingers tracing out across the skin of his face to find the wrinkles of his own that have sprouted there. "Yes, Erwin. It looks like we have."

* * *

Levi wakes up, his neck stiff from his awkward sleeping position, his head pillowed on his arm on Eren's bed. His back aches, making him grit his teeth as he stretches and rubs the crust of sleep from his eyes. His son is still lying immobile in bed, eyes closed, long lashes dusting his cheeks, and even though his eyes are closed, Levi can still see the redness lining the bottoms of his eyelids.

There is a stale taste in his mouth, like copper and ketosis, and Erwin is nowhere to be seen. If his jacket hadn't been draped around Levi's shoulders, Levi would have thought the whole thing a dream.

"Hey," Erwin says quietly from the doorway, where he is leaning against the jamb. "How are you holding up?"

Levi looks up at him, a saving grace. His hands unconsciously tug the jacket tighter around his shoulders, and Erwin smiles quietly, the tip of his mouth lifting up as he walks over and rearranges it around Levi's shoulders.

"We've been better," Levi admits, savoring the feel of Erwin's fingers around his upper arm, and regretting it bitterly even as he stares at the patches of stubble lining Erwin's jaw and wondering what it would feel like against his lips, against his neck.

"Yeah," Erwin says quietly. "I know that feel."

Levi's stomach growls, loudly, so loudly that he looks over at Eren, wondering if he is going to wake up. He doesn't, and Levi wonders whether to be disappointed by this, or glad that Eren is not awake to see evidence of his infidelities.

"I'll get you something to eat," Erwin offers. His fingers leave Levi's arm, and Levi, against his better judgment, reaches up to grasp at Erwin's sleeve, whitewashed in the pale grey light.

Erwin looks back at Levi, whose eyes seem to be shocked at his own volitions, staring at his hand around Erwin's wrist, as though he can't believe it is him doing that. As if he can't believe he's in a position to be the one left needing.

Erwin turns back, moving slowly, as if trying not to startle Levi, a deer caught in the headlights. Levi's fingers are still limply clutching Erwin's shirt sleeves between the pad of his thumb and forefinger. Erwin lowers himself to Levi's face level, taking in the way the grey light of late morning wraps over Levi's face, makes the dark hollows under his eyes appear even darker, bathes him in an ethereal pale light of angels of mercy. His lips are cracked, Erwin notes, worried to the quick by anxious teeth and dryness.

They hold their breath, Levi's eyes staring, unblinking, as Erwin's hand comes up, slowly, slowly, to cup the side of his face. It feels like love, and it feels like confusion, and Levi's tongue is thick with the words he wants to say. In the end, all he can manage to sputter out is an, "I'm not sure." Not sure about this, not sure about anything, not sure if I am deserving, he wants to say, but Erwin's thumb is rolling over his bottom lip, tracing the swell of flesh as though he's never seen anything like it before, nudging over the chapped skin, coming to rest at the corner of his mouth.

"It's okay." Erwin's voice, when it comes, is rough. "I will take care of it," he murmurs, voice self-assured, confident, eyes piercing Levi to the core and turning his secrets into the open. "I will take care of everything."

His mouth is there, then, a light feathering where his thumb had been against the corner of Levi's lips. Levi stays still, barely breathing, pulse thudding violently in his chest in stark contrast to the regular, rhythmic beeping of Eren's heart just a few feet away.

"This is all I ask," Erwin says, barely a whisper, his lips tickling against Levi's skin. "Have mercy, Levi. You've been unraveling me from the very start."

Levi shifts his face, just a few millimeters to the left, and Erwin's kiss lands deep and heavy against his mouth. His hands tighten in the front of Erwin's shirt, unsure whether to tug him closer or push him away. Unsure, uncertain, Petra's memory resting over his left shoulder, but then Erwin's fingers are gently stroking through his hair, unwashed, probably greasy from a few days of worry, and as Erwin's thumb gently massages against the back of his neck, he finds the mercy he needs from her, the mercy that he needs from himself.

Jamison Pierce stands in the doorway, Eren's clipboard and charts in his hand, crystal eyes taking in the scene before him. He'd suspected, he'd guessed, he'd thought it was the case when Erwin had confronted him the night before, asking him if it wasn't possible for him to route the hospital bills to Erwin's banking account. But to be confronted with the evidence directly in front of him is a completely different story.

He cannot help but see the past in the present. Erwin in Fair Isle sweaters and navy dress shirts, giving presentations and smoking blunts long after everyone had gone to bed, scenting the air with the pungent smoke of fantasy. Erwin in his graduation cap and gown, his diploma curled in his hand, a certification of achievement and approval. Erwin dancing with his new bride in the ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, laughing and happy. And he tries to reconcile this with the Erwin of last night, the insecure, uncertain, unhappy one.

And Levi. Crying, jagged Levi, when the numbers weren't right, when he had tried to smile and assure himself everything would be okay before breaking out into tears again in the hallway. Shell shocked Levi, hands twisting around each other, unsure what to do with himself. The Levi of the past few days, face pale, wan, drawn, fretting himself sick about his son. And this Levi, the one whose face is tilted up towards Erwin's, eyes closed, dressed in the pale light of late morning. This Levi has found himself, has stepped into his own shoes and out of the crutch of others'.

Jamison Pierce smiles quietly to himself as he steps back, out of sight, and waits for a few minutes to allow the two unsuspecting inside to compose themselves. Today is not a day of 'what if's, is not a day of 'maybe's. The future has crept up without anyone noticing, and emblazoned today with 'when's.


	15. The Father

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written to: [Wanderlust Opposite Bonfire - Gray Young](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-eoAga7unI).
> 
> Thanks for sticking out the whole ride, feels and all :) I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> IN ADDITION: I am currently looking for either a beta/editor, or a collaboration partner. If you are interested, please indicate that in your comment below. Thanks! And thanks for reading, of course.
> 
> M

It sounds completely innocuous, syllables spilling from Dr. Pierce's mouth, sounds absolutely nothing like those three words he had come to know and dread and snarl against the bitterness of them on his tongue. _Acute myeloid leukemia. He sounds them out again in his mouth, remembering the way his voice had grown stale in his throat when he'd tried to ask the doctor if there was any hope, if there was anything to be done. The doctor had hemmed and hawed, watering the seeds of hesitation already shooting out little grey tendrils to wrap around Levi's arteries and veins._

_He'd been willing to try. But she hadn't been._

_"There's not too much point, is there?" she'd asked, smiling at him, tears watery in her eyes. He was only slightly comforted by the fact that it was affecting her, too. "We all have to go sometime, and you'll still need money for Eren." There had been the implicit assumption between them that Eren would stay with Levi, that Levi would raise him, that Levi would step into the shoes of the father that he'd only ever dreamt of. Levi had opened his mouth, Eren a warm, sticky bundle held against his chest, swaddled in blankets, and had closed it again as he saw her pinch her lips tight together, trying not to cry._

_"I - yes," he'd murmured quietly, the tears clogging his voice, because the six months they had given her seemed to be too soon, just a half year for him to tell him how much he loved her, for him to memorise the smell of her hair and the exact tint of her eyes. "Of course I will."_

And it turned out that all the things he'd planned out for those six months were gone to loss; the trips he'd been planning to take her on, maps scattered around his desk with thick creases and red squiggles of pencil marks on them because he wanted to show her the wonders of the world before she became a part of the universe; the things he'd been planning to do for her, breakfasts in bed, long walks in the park, feeding stale bread to the ducks and laughing as white feathers flew up to decorate her hair; the words he'd been planning to say. I love you. I need you. I miss you already, because you are no longer the person you once were, and I am no longer the person I once was.

_Time has left its ravages on us, and it liked you so much that it decided to take you with it._

_She had been gone in two weeks, and the trips, the deeds, the words, became things that got lodged in his throat, because the recipient had gone, had not left a forwarding address, had returned all his whims with a big fat 'return to sender' stamped all across them._

But now, as he sits with one of his hands clasped between erwin's broad palms, he begins to wonder if maybe she hadn't been right the whole time. He'd never had to watch her hair fall out, strand by strand, golden and honey onto the pillow, hadn't had to suffer through an entire six months of watching her waste away into the ether of unreality. She had saved him that, at least. As odd as it sounds, with erwin's warmth so close by him, he feels that maybe she has done this last deed to protect him, to show him a final act of caring and compassion that he could never hope to repay.

"I'm fairly certain he has Kawasaki's," Jamison Pierce says quietly, not mentioning the way his old classmate has his hands wrapped around one of Levi's, acting as though it is completely ordinary, as though he has just stepped into this chapter of Erwin's life, as though he has not attended Erwin's wedding and seen him through graduation and a multitude of other things.

"Fairly certain isn't good enough, Jamison." Erwin's voice is quiet, but strong, and the use of his full name, much less the expedition of eren's case, tells the doctor that Erwin is serious about this boy lying in the bed, about this man whose hand he holds between his own. "Why are you fairly certain?"

"Because it's not..." Jamison slips off into a list of diseases he's tried and tested, working himself and his team of medical students in residencies and fellowships and diagnosticians around the clock, and pouches of blue have started to gather themselves under more than a few pairs of weary eyes. Scarlet fever, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, toxic shock syndrome, the words and diagnoses slip from his mouth into their ears, and he wonders if they are even aware of how many bullets they've missed, of how easily three words can spell out a death sentence.

Looking at Levi, at the way his face has sprouted wrinkles of worry, Jamison recalls to himself that, yes, Levi knows quite well the power of three words. Acute myeloid leukemia. _Six months' expectancy. I will not. I will not accept the treatment._

"So what can we do about it?" Erwin asks him, drawing his attention back to the present. Petra is gone, long departed from this world, and he wonders if Levi will ever again bask in a bubble of vibrancy quite like the one she'd possessed, brightening the corridors of the hospital with a smile that was made only more heartbreakingly beautiful by the tears standing sentinel against her eyelashes. "How do we fix it? What caused it?" Erwin's words fill the air, and Jamison bites back a smile, remembering the way they would lie on their dorm room floor in the dead of winter, rings of pungent smoke spilling from their mouths and debating the questions of the universe.

"As for what caused it, as of right now there is no tried and true theory of causation," Jamison says. "Bacteria, viruses, environmental things, maybe even genes, there really is no test we can do to just say, 'Oh, it's Kawasaki's,' right away. To diagnose it, it's a procedure of ruling out everything else that it might be."

Levi sits there, his breathing starting to ease. _It is not his fault, it has never been his fault, how can it have been when the genes running through Eren's DNA have no connection to him?_ For the first time in what he feels like eternity, a sense of relief goes running warm through him, and he wonders if this is what it is like to be set free.

"And as for treatment, I'd recommend keeping him here a few more days, starting him on a course of gamma globulin to reduce the risk of heart problems, aspirin, broadscale antibiotics, and he'll be as right as rain. If in the rare case he does develop heart complications, perhaps more drastic treatments will need to be pursued, but that is something we will need to be vigilant about in the coming few months."

 _We_. The word tastes sweet in Levi's mouth, an indication that he is not alone, that he can give up the sword and shield to someone else.

* * *

By the late afternoon, after the milky substances have already gone into Eren's veins, color is slowly flooding back into Eren's face, and he sits up, all of a boisterous not-quite-two-year-old, demanding Jell-O and promptly squishing it all over his face. Levi laughs, and Erwin laughs with him, an echo of his own, reminding him quietly of how nice it is to have an echo, a responder, what it feels like to have a shadow and a presence in a world that seems to have forgotten him and passed him by.

"Papa, hi," Eren says, through a mouthful of strawberry Jell-O, regarding Levi through clear blue eyes.

"Hey, kiddo," Levi says, through a soft smile, leaning over to ruffle his son's hair. "You gave me quite the scare, do you know that?" Eren stares at him, unconcerned, before his gaze lights on Erwin and he breaks out into a huge smile, reaching out sticky Jell-O covered hands to him.

"Win!" he chirps, his voice a bit raspy from disuse. Levi looks at Erwin in surprise, admiration, a bit of jealousy.

"You got him to say your name," he says. "What have you done to my son, teaching him new words and getting him to eat peas?"

Erwin smiles back at him, and Levi for the first time notices how tired he looks. "I'm a man of many talents, Levi," he informs him, rather matter of factly. Levi's heart feels fuller than it has in a long time, so full that he feels as though he will overflow, seeing the world in a bright new way, beautiful and clean and bright.

"Yes," he says quietly, agreeing, capturing and holding Erwin's gaze. "I would dare say you are."

* * *

_What makes a father?_

_I feel like there are several answers to that question, a recipe that varies from person to person, a pinch of love here, a dash of athleticism, a penchant for Monday night football ensconced carefully in a squashy armchair in front of a big-screen television, with a bowl of tortilla chips and an icy bottle of beer clutched firmly in one hand._

A clear, high voice laughed, somewhere close outside the Manhattan loft, a squeal of delight, followed closely by a deeper, indulgent chuckle.

_There were good fathers. There were bad ones. Present ones, absent ones._

The door opened, letting in the sunlight and the warm May breeze, and the clear laughter rang out inside the house this time. A blue backpack dangled off the seven-year-old's shoulders as he rushed to the kitchen, in search of an after school snack. The man behind him was loosening his tie, unbuttoning the cuffs of his suit jacket, rolling crisp dress shirt sleeves further up his forearms.

 _I still woke up some mornings, finding it horribly difficult to believe that I, too, was a father_.

Dishes clinked, a fine set of wedding china that was already chipped around the edges through constant use and perhaps one too many trips through a dishwasher, as the man set about spreading peanut butter on crackers for the boy, who'd already seated himself at the table and was currently swinging his legs back and forth from the tall chair.

"Dad?" the boy asked.   
"Yes?" the man replied, his golden hair catching the afternoon light spilling in through the kitchen window, gauzy ivory curtains billowing with the breeze as the man opens the window a crack. "What is it?"   
"Where's Papa?"

_My son - our son - is an orphan of orphans, displaced, mislaid, forgotten by those who have brought him into this world, but not abandoned. I've promised not to abandon him._

The man checked his watch as he set the plate of crackers in front of his son. "He should be home soon," he promised. "Remember Papa has to go to class like you do, also, and then he takes the train back home because Papa doesn't like Dad picking him up."

"Oh," the boy said, eagerly digging into his crackers. "I remember."

_Five years have gone by since I laid aside my defenses and let myself be helped up by hands that were only reaching out to give, expecting nothing in return. I feel as though I've just closed my eyes for an instance, and just like that, time is erased, spiraling dizzy into the future._

"Why does Papa take the train?" the boy asked, peanut butter smeared around the corner of his mouth.  
"He says it gives him space so that he can think," the man replied, smiling back endearingly. "He says you and I are very, very noisy people to live with."

"Aren't people on the train noisy?" the boy wanted to know.   
"i think that's a different kind of noisy, Eren."

_It is always so easy to leave, to turn your back on the past and be lifted up into new places you've never even dreamed of, a place that makes Room 5102 look like a child's playpen. I've still never stayed there, but I don't think I need to, anymore. I have enough. More than enough._

"Why does Papa go to class?" the boy asked again, only reaffirming the fact that he had grown up to be a chatterbox.   
"Because Papa wants to finish school."

The boy wrinkled his nose in distaste. "I hate school," he muttered through a mouthful of cracker.   
The man laughed. "I wouldn't say that where your papa can hear you, he might get very angry."

_Don't get me wrong. There have been moments where I thought I hated them, with an intensity that surprised even myself, an intensity that reminded me I was still alive and capable of feeling something other than numbness._

A key turns in the doorway, and the boy jumps up, very nearly overturning the half-finished plate of crackers in his haste to get to the front door. A few moments later, a squeal of "Papa!" comes from the living foyer, another outburst of more laughter and greetings as another set of shoes is toed off at the entrance, as another set of feet comes padding through the loft towards the kitchen.

"Hey, Levi," Erwin says, smiling at him as he enters the kitchen. "Had a good day?"

"Pretty good," Levi agrees, smiling back, his eyes crinkling into curved commas as Eren returns to his seat and resumes furiously stuffing crackers into his face. The platinum band on his ring finger glints in the afternoon sunlight as he turns away from erwin and tugs open the fridge, rummaging through it with a frown.

"I swear there was still curry in here from last night," he says, looking out from around the fridge door at Erwin. "Did you take it to work?"

"I did," Erwin says, smiling shamelessly. "Jamie invited us to go have dinner with him and his fiancee at that ramen place downtown."

"Oh? Is that right?" Levi asks, still eyeing the contents of the fridge with obvious distaste. His black messenger bag was slightly open, a sheaf of papers peeking out.

"What is that?" Erwin asks, reaching forward.

Levi's hand closes around Erwin's wrist before he can divulge the bag of its pile of papers. "It's just my entry for this personal memoir contest at school," he mutters. "Nothing really that good, and it's not even done yet."

Erwin lets it go for the present moment, but all throughout dinner the sheaf of papers lodges firm in the forefront of his mind, even as he laughs at Jamie's jokes and congratulates him on his engagement and his lovely new fiancee.

_I have been lost and I have been found, been found deserving and unmissing, unmistaken. This chapter of my life has started profoundly, profusely, and I am loving every single sentence of it._

He reads the short few pages hastily paper-clipped together while Levi is in the shower, curiosity consuming him and getting the better of him until he really could not help but open the bag and tug it out to read. The pencilled words are hasty, written shakily in a hand that jolts around the page, as with the sudden starts and stops of a train pulling in and out of stations.

_He has listened to the sound of my soul, and found the melody beautiful and worthy of polishing up with little additions of harmony here and there. He has given me a chance at redemption, has given me a home, has given me a life of love and laughter and loveliness all throughout._

The water drips to a stop, and erwin hastily stuffs the pages back into the bag, careful not to crease them, smiling innocently up at Levi as the other man exits the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist.

_He has given me back my words._

Erwin reads the rest of the pages by moonlight as Levi rolls toward him in his sleep, soft contentment on his face, and Eren snores vigorously in the other room just a few paces away.

_The laws of metamorphosis have changed us from acquaintances to lovers and friends to parents and fathers. A butterfly's wings beat in Tokyo and sends a whirlwind across the universe, and I have been caught up in this tornado. Vivid. Alive, and I am cherishing every second._

Levi mumbles something in his sleep, and Erwin turns to him, pressing a soft kiss to his temple and smiling at the little grin that graces Levi's face before he slips back into dreams.

_I still miss her. I still love her. But where one door closes, another one opens and gives you a different perspective on things. I've loved and I've lost and I am learning every day how to love again. He has been the best of teachers, the best of friends and husbands, the best of fathers._

* * *

 

Levi wakes up the next morning to the scent of vanilla nut coffee, a plate of eggs in the pan on the stove, still warm, and he stretches, yawning as he pads into the kitchen, thinking ahead to the presentation he has in his one o'clock class. Erwin has already taken Eren to school, and Levi revels in the soft solitude of the luxurious flat sprawling out around him.

He reaches out for the mug of coffee, already diluted with cream and sugar, and lifts it to his mouth. As he raises the porcelain to his lips, he glances down at the flash of yellow that appears on the counter.

"L -" the post-it reads. "I liked it. Love, E."

Levi takes the note in hand, smiling quietly to himself as he pads back to the bedroom to get ready for the day ahead.


End file.
